{"status":true,"msg":{"data":{"id":56470,"auction_id":110,"set_id":144,"lot_number":"43","artist":"Vicente Manansala (1910 - 1981)","title":"From the Market","starting_price":16000000,"signed_dated":"signed and dated 1975 (upper left)","medium":"oil on canvas","size":"29\" x 37\" (74 cm x 94 cm)","property":"PROPERTY OF A DISTINGUISHED LADY","coa":null,"provenance":"Acquired directly from the artist","exhibited":null,"literature":"Paras-Perez, Rod. Manansala. Manila: PLC Publications, 1980. Black-andwhite illustration on page 242 and painting description on page 243.","write_up":"Mang Enteng’s Favorite Masterpiece Manansala Paints His Self-Portrait as a Sabungero by ADRIAN MARANAN \nThe renowned British psychologist John Charles Turner once wrote in 1996, \"The self is fundamentally sociological, not biological.\" According to Turner, our sense of self is influenced by our association with specific social groups and, therefore, molded into the \"collective self.\" Thus, the \"self\" becomes synonymous and intimately inseparable from the \"collective.\"<br /><br />Vicente Manansala was always a bold and irreverent gent, beaming with a prankish and witty sense of humor, like an old-fashioned Filipino man could ever be. But beyond that was a man ingrained with proletarian sensibilities, deeply in touch with his fellow ordinary folks. Growing up in prewar Intramuros, Manansala experienced the hardships of living early on; he worked as a shoe-shine boy (bootblack), a caddy, a distributor of films for movie houses, and a newspaper hawker selling copies of La Vanguardia and El Debate Independiente all throughout Manila. <br /><br />A palpable proof of Manansala's profound identity as being one with the culture of the masses was his love for sabong, or cockfighting, a pastime deeply rooted in our collective culture. Sabong existed even before Magellan's arrival on our shores, as witnessed by the expedition's chronicler, Antonio Pigafetta.<br /><br />The story goes like this. Manansala, after he graduated from the University of the Philippines School of Fine Arts in 1930, ran away from home when his father castigated him \"for keeping a stable of seven fighting cocks,\" as once recounted in a September 1958 article by the highly popular This Week magazine.<br /><br />Manansala also revealed in a May 1973 interview with Cid Reyes that one of his most beloved subjects is the rooster and the cockfighter, thanks to his sabungero past. He said in his signature sense of humor. “Ah! Yang manok e talagang gustong-gusto ko! Alam mo noong binata ako, sabungero ako! Pero nang mag-asawa ako, tinigilan ko. Alam mo naman, ‘yang manok at asawa e hinding-hindi pwedeng magkasama!”<br /><br />It is in the assimilation of the sense of self with an ingrained element of our social culture that we find the significance of Manansala's From the Market. From the Market is an interesting case within Manansala's oeuvre as it features a self-portrait of the maestro as a sabungero, once his favorite pastime and quickly turned to being his most cherished subject in his paintings. Manansala is in the vigor of his youth, a handsome man with prominent cheekbones, a well-defined jawline, and a high-bridged nose.<br /><br />Beside Manansala is a pregnant woman depicting the beautiful Aling Hilda, or Hermenegilda Diaz Manansala, Mang Enteng's beloved wife. This intriguing portrait of Manansala and his wife evokes that time when he had to stop cockfighting all in the name of his precious wife, whom he relentlessly courted for seven years, married in November of 1937 (they eloped after Mang Enteng stole a kiss from the maiden during their first movie date), and with whom he would have a son named Emmanuel (born in 1939). Aling Hilda is depicted as an irked woman, her gaze away from Mang Enteng, perhaps annoyed at her husband's \"constant craving\" for cockfighting. The rooster looks with pity on Manansala, as if pleading with the conflicted Mang Enteng not to leave behind his “side chick.” “I love the sabungero because I was one,” Manansala proudly expressed in Rod. Paras-Perez’s book on him.<br /><br />The beautiful women vendors, to whom Aling Hilda also looks with apprehension (perhaps a sign of veiled jealousy of Mang Enteng's flirtatious tendencies?), are reminiscent of Manansala's proletarian boyhood when he used to hustle his way all throughout pre-war Manila's streets to earn a living. \"My painting is a sort of emotional release,\" Manansala famously said in the above-mentioned This Week article. \"I paint not what I see but what I feel.\"<br /><br />By the time Manansala painted this work, he had been riding high on his well-deserved success. He was the Philippines' most famous painter. In fact, during his prolific 1970s, Manansala's shows were instant blockbusters; the entire show would be sold out in a quick snap. There was his 1974 exhibition at Silay, Negros Occidental, in which all 40 art pieces were sold in only ten minutes, breaking a record for a Philippine exhibition, as reported in the periodical Woman's Home Companion. In another show, in December 1977, art critic Leonidas Benesa wrote in the Philippines Daily Express that all 16 artworks were sold before the exhibit had even opened. Benesa raves about its rarity in the Manila art world, saying that before Manansala, only Tabuena had achieved this feat.<br /><br />\"For more than 20 years, Manansala has been receiving invitations from museums and galleries abroad for oneman shows,\" said the Woman's Home Companion article. \"But he has turned them all down. That is because, although a prolific artist who religiously paints every day, he cannot gather enough pieces for one-man shows. His works are bought before they are even started.\"<br /><br />However, there were a handful of paintings that Mang Enteng kept for himself, tucked inside the bedroom of his Binangonan home. From the Market is among those works. The current owner reminisced that his mom acquired the work from Manansala himself one sunny day in 1975, when he accompanied her to Binangonan to visit Mang Enteng at the eager request of a very good friend.<br /><br />The owner recalled that he witnessed how Manansala casually pulled this work from under the bed and offered it to his mother, whom Mang Enteng had always wanted to be one of his models from the very start. \"Mama and Mang Enteng had been acquaintances since after the war,\" the owner said. During that time, Manansala worked as a staff artist for the Evening News, and the owner's mother was a staffer for The Manila Times (then the country’s leading daily) who had the confidence of her boss, the venerable Chino Roces. Both periodicals were under the Roces media empire.<br /><br />\"Mang Enteng had wanted my Mama to pose for him from that time, and he always 'flirted' with my beauteous mother,\" the owner revealed. \"Mang Enteng would always say to my mom, 'Oh, you're so beautiful! You should be my model.' My mother always resisted but knew how to 'flirt' back.\"<br /><br />The owner shared that when Manansala painted for himself, he would put it under his bed; some were rolled up, others were stretched. From the Market, the owner recalled, had just been stretched, wrapped in cardboard, and ready to be framed. Manansala himself chose the painting and offered to gift it to the owner's mother, saying, \"This is one of my best paintings! This is my favorite work as this is my best 'transparent cubist' rendition of my palengke [market] scene, with myself as my favorite sabungero [cockfighter].\"<br /><br />\"My mother refused to accept it as a gift because she was so conscious that she had to compensate people for their hard work,\" said the owner. \"She was always there as an avid supporter when the Filipino modernists were still financially struggling and striving for acceptance. She had always had a sweet, soft spot not just for these painters but for everyone fairly and eagerly working their way to the top.\"<br /><br />From the Market is a beautiful painting where one sees a harmonious wedding of Manansala's sense of self, his love and appreciation for his own roots and culture, and an art lover/patron's profound consciousness towards promoting and cultivating the artist's role in nation-building.<br /><br />This compelling intersection of art, culture, and personal relationships holds such gravitas that Manansala considered From the Market his favorite painting.","lot_group":"PAINTING","lot_details_html":null,"alias":null,"hp":30000000,"bp":0.2016,"isWithdrawn":0,"accounting_hp":30000000,"userBid":5926,"isPaid":0,"userId":22,"lot_status":"SOLD","isDone":1,"bid_history_id":null,"reserve_price":null,"hammer_price":36048000,"fav":0},"image":[{"id":60302,"img_url":"https://leongallery.sgp1.digitaloceanspaces.com/v2/auction/110/144/lot/43.jpg","isFeatured":1},{"id":60638,"img_url":"https://leongallery.sgp1.digitaloceanspaces.com/v2/auction/110/144/lot/43c.jpg","isFeatured":0},{"id":60637,"img_url":"https://leongallery.sgp1.digitaloceanspaces.com/v2/auction/110/144/lot/43a.jpg","isFeatured":0},{"id":60635,"img_url":"https://leongallery.sgp1.digitaloceanspaces.com/v2/auction/110/144/lot/43b.jpg","isFeatured":0}]},"increment":[],"prev":42,"next":44,"count_bid":0,"bid_history":[],"tokenExpired":1}