{"status":true,"msg":{"data":{"id":58382,"auction_id":121,"set_id":155,"lot_number":"20","artist":"Arturo Luz (1926 - 2021)","title":"Untitled (Landscape/Still Life)","starting_price":1400000,"signed_dated":"dedicated and signed \"To my good friend, Tiking Lopez with best wishes\", July 1971 \npossibly done in the 1950’s","medium":"oil on wood","size":"23\" x 36\" (58 cm x 91 cm)","property":"PROPERTY FROM THE DON VICENTE “TIKING” H. LOPEZ COLLECTION","coa":"Accompanied by a certificate issued by Ms. Luisa Luz-Lansigan confirming the authenticity of this lot","provenance":"A gift from the artist to Don Tiking Lopez","exhibited":null,"literature":null,"write_up":"This cow skull painting by Arturo Luz, although dedicated to Don Tiking Lopez in 1971, was credibly painted by the artist during the 1950s. The work at hand showcases a style highly evocative of Luz's early explorations of vendors, carnival figures, musicians, and still lifes rendered starkly yet possessing quite an array of colors and relatively robust figures, unlike his later depictions of the same subjects in the 1990s and beyond. This painting may have been created in the early 1950s, as seen in the deep and earthy colors evocative of the Mexican painter Rufino Tamayo, who was one of Luz's primary influences at the time. This characteristic can also be seen in the 1952 painting titled Man with Mandolin (Paulino and Hetty Que Collection), Two Women Singing (Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas Collection), and Candle Vendors (Esperanza Fricke Collection). Luz may have also been inspired by Georgia O’Keeffe’s skull paintings, encountering them during his art studies in the US in the late 1940s. O’Keeffe was a collector of bones found in the desert of New Mexico and was inspired by their haunting beauty and their powerful symbolisms connecting life and death—the circle of life.
Furthermore, Luz abandoned figurative painting beginning in 1969, exploring a pure, non-objective visual language that was initially manifested through collages but soon turned into other art forms, including sculpture and burlap. Luz had felt that the subject matter was no longer important, and Roberto Chabet had influenced him to pursue collage, which for Luz was logically the first step to abandon figuration. Luz would again delve into figuration beginning in the early 1990s, resurrecting his earlier subjects but now in a more precise, rigid, and cold form of geometric abstraction.
Regarding the inscription at the back, Luz may have culled this work from his personal collection and then gifted this painting to Don Tiking Lopez, who was named 1971’s “Art Patron of the Year” in recognition of his support for the young artists of the time, including Justin Nuyda, Ibarra de la Rosa, Angelito Antonio, Sofronio Y. Mendoza, and Antonio Austria. Luz may have seen the potent symbolism of the skull as a representation of human mortality and the profound wisdom and guidance that one acquires through age, much like Don Tiking’s legacy of patronage that will live on through the artists he bestowed with his generosity. (Adrian Maranan)","lot_group":"PAINTING","lot_details_html":"
Arturo Luz (1926 - 2021) Untitled dedicated and signed \"To my good friend, Tiking Lopez with best wishes\", July 1971 possibly done in the 1950’s oil on wood 23\" x 36\" (58 cm x 91 cm)