{"status":true,"msg":{"data":{"id":58469,"auction_id":121,"set_id":155,"lot_number":"105","artist":"Lee Aguinaldo (1933 - 2007)","title":"Green Circulation No. 22","starting_price":2800000,"signed_dated":"signed and dated 1973 (verso)","medium":"acrylic (aqua-tec)","size":"36\" x 36\" (91 cm x 91 cm)","property":"PROPERTY OF AN OLD MANILA FAMILY","coa":null,"provenance":"The Luz Gallery","exhibited":null,"literature":null,"write_up":"The cusp of the 1970s brought great change to Lee Aguinaldo. Throughout his life, his duty as the first son meant his role was to take over the family business, a fact his father, Daniel R. Aguinaldo, drilled into him. Despite his early affinity and natural talent for the arts (according to his mother, Helen, Aguinaldo had started drawing at the age of two), Daniel made sure to stamp out any inclination of the young child’s interest in the arts, recounting an early memory where his father “started to tear all the drawings on the floor and [break] every pencil and crayon on the floor.” <br><br> Despite many such attempts to dissuade his son, including sending him to military training to straighten out and extinguish any illusions he had, Aguinaldo pursued this path incessantly. By the end of the 1960s, he had decided to resign from his father’s company, eschewing the comfort his privileged class endured. <br><br> Still, despite the considerable strain this move put on his finances, it is undeniable that this is when his career took the path he would be hailed for. Between 1970 and 1985, Aguinaldo was among the artists who consistently participated in the newly opened Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP), appearing almost every year in different exhibitions. It was here that his method and conceptual and experimental works thrived, catapulting him to local and international acclaim. <br><br> It was in this decade that Aguinaldo created his arguably most famous series: the Circulation series. An even more distilled version of his already minimalist body of works, Circulation emphasized Aguinaldo’s technique of using repetitive and almost identical strokes to create an incredibly in-depth composition. <br><br> “Both in the choice of color and form, these artworks have been hammered into a frame-like square bookended by two wide vertical bands, which have been offset by two planes of colors at their vertical ends joining up in the optical center in gradated fields of hyper-modulated color,” writes Cid Reyes in the book “The Life and Art of Lee Aguinaldo.” <br><br> The lot in hand, the 1973 Green Circulation No. 22, was created in the same year the series started. Like many of his Circulation works, Aguinaldo’s bravura technique in this piece exhibits the artist’s skillful brushwork, so attuned to even the barest of light and hues that it successfully hints at hidden depths. <br><br> As its name suggests, Green Circulation is Aguinaldo’s exploration of the color green and its different hues and saturations through a color field painting. In these paintings, he explored all the different possibilities of abstraction and minimalism, creating a work that is both endlessly complex and deceptively simple. <br><br> Green Circulation No. 22 injects a different hue within its canvas. Though the two broad vertical bands on either side of the canvas are still there, the signature square frame at the center is reduced into a smaller rectangle piece, now boasting a vivid shade of blue instead of a lighter shade of green. However, despite that, Aguinaldo’s control and technique are still evident. <br><br> “Though more modest in size compared to [his other] works, the Circulation paintings seem expansive, but gemlike, less constricted, inducing a retinal spark in the viewer,” Reyes writes. <br><br> Predating the use of technology vis-à-vis gradient creation, the Circulation series puts at the center stage Aguinaldo’s magnificent brushwork, declaring the artist as a tour de force in color modulation. (Hannah Valiente)","lot_group":"PAINTING","lot_details_html":null,"alias":null,"hp":3000000,"bp":0.2016,"isWithdrawn":0,"accounting_hp":3000000,"userBid":null,"isPaid":0,"userId":22,"lot_status":"SOLD","isDone":1,"bid_history_id":null,"reserve_price":null,"hammer_price":3604800,"fav":0},"image":[{"id":63724,"img_url":"https://leongallery.sgp1.digitaloceanspaces.com/v2/auction/121/155/lot/105.jpg","isFeatured":1},{"id":64033,"img_url":"https://leongallery.sgp1.digitaloceanspaces.com/v2/auction/121/155/lot/105d.jpg","isFeatured":0},{"id":64027,"img_url":"https://leongallery.sgp1.digitaloceanspaces.com/v2/auction/121/155/lot/105c.jpg","isFeatured":0},{"id":63909,"img_url":"https://leongallery.sgp1.digitaloceanspaces.com/v2/auction/121/155/lot/105a.jpg","isFeatured":0},{"id":63908,"img_url":"https://leongallery.sgp1.digitaloceanspaces.com/v2/auction/121/155/lot/105b.jpg","isFeatured":0}]},"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":104,"next":106,"count_bid":0,"bid_history":[],"tokenExpired":1}