{"status":true,"msg":{"data":{"id":78,"auction_id":1,"set_id":1,"lot_number":"45","artist":"Lee Aguinaldo (1933 - 2007)","title":"Painting in Green No.2","starting_price":4000000,"signed_dated":"signed and dated 1963 (verso)","medium":"oil on canvas","size":"32” x 31” (81 cm x 79 cm)","property":null,"coa":null,"provenance":"Acquired directly from the artist","exhibited":null,"literature":"Taft, Ron. My World: Reflections on My Life and Times. Langwarrin, Victoria: Milestones Books, 2015. Painting mentioned on page 114.","write_up":"In 1950, I was strolling past Washington Square in Manhattan when I noticed a sign outside New York University building advertising an art exhibition,\n‘Admission Free,’” Taft writes. “When I entered, I was shocked by the canvases that appeared to me to be meaningless daubing and shrieking colors with no obvious meaning. ‘Any child could do that!’ I said to myself, angry at what I thought was a ‘con.’” <br /><br />\n“I happened to be looking at the work of American non- figurative Expressionism, perhaps the work of such eminent painters as Kline, de Kooning, Pollock, and Rothko...I do know that many years later, I learnt to appreciate abstract art and consider ‘Blue Poles,’ the Jackson Pollock painting in Canberra’s National Gallery of Australia, to be worth every cent that the Whitlam Government spent on it.” <br /><br />\nTaft also had the privilege of meeting Mark Rothko in his studio through his friend Ken Rabin, Rothko’s nephew. “Although we had never heard of him, Ellen and I contacted him in 1961, and he immediately invited us to his studio,” Taft reminisces in writing. “Little did we know that that studio would enter the history of modern art!” Taft further adds: “In the meantime, both Ellen [his wife] and I grew to love Rothko’s work just as we did Pollock’s.” <br /><br />\nTaft also recounts his fortuitous encounter with Lee Aguinaldo that led to his acquisition of Painting in Green No. 2. <br /><br />\n“In 1963, I went to Manila from Perth with the main purpose of paying a brief visit to my friend, Ken Rabin, who had just moved there as an American diplomat. He lived in a secure, enclosed community in an upper-class area. After dinner, he invited over his neighbor, a thirty-year-old artist called Lee Aguinaldo, of whom I had never previously heard. <br /><br />\n“Lee, Ken, and I had a long, warm, and comfortable evening consuming San Miguel beer—Lee’s family had shares in the company—and listening to jazz records. Late that evening, Lee invited me to his unit to see his artworks. I immediately took a liking to his work, which was completely abstract, with the paint laid on heavily, and in a very short time, I bought ‘Painting in Green No. 2’ and arranged for it to be shipped to Perth through Lee’s family shipping company. <br /><br />\n“I only found out much later that Lee had studied art in New York and was a follower of the New York Expressionism School. He was heavily influenced by Jackson Pollock and Mark Rothko. When I met him, he was already regarded as the leading non-objective modernist artist in the Philippines. Considering that, the price of the painting was a real bargain for which I could partially thank the San Miguel brewery and the fact that Ken Rabin was Mark Rothko’s nephew.” <br /><br />\n“... Postscript: Only today did I discover three interesting things about Aguinaldo: his mother was a Russian Jew; his family had originally sent him to America to become an army officer, but his passion for art prevailed; and his family went spectacularly bankrupt in the 1980s, and Aguinaldo lived the life of a pauper who identified himself with the poverty- stricken artist Rembrandt.” (Adrian Maranan)","lot_group":"PAINTING","lot_details_html":null,"alias":null,"hp":0,"bp":0.2016,"isWithdrawn":0,"accounting_hp":0,"userBid":25,"isPaid":0,"userId":22,"lot_status":"UNSOLD","isDone":1,"bid_history_id":352,"reserve_price":null,"hammer_price":0,"fav":0},"image":[{"id":45,"img_url":"https://leongallery.sgp1.digitaloceanspaces.com/v2/auction/1/1/lot/45.jpg","isFeatured":1}]},"increment":[2200000,2400000,2600000,2800000,3000000,3200000,3400000,3600000,3800000,4000000,4200000,4400000,4600000,4800000,5000000,5500000,6000000,6500000,7000000,7500000,8000000,8500000,9000000,9500000,10000000,11000000,12000000,13000000,14000000,15000000,16000000,17000000,18000000,19000000,20000000],"prev":44,"next":46,"count_bid":0,"bid_history":[],"tokenExpired":1}