{"status":true,"msg":{"data":{"id":60772,"auction_id":203,"set_id":236,"lot_number":"61","artist":"Hernando R. Ocampo (1911 - 1978)","title":"Mask (Possibly \"The Clown\" / \"Mask for a Lady\")","starting_price":5000000,"signed_dated":"signed and dated 1961 (lower right)","medium":"oil on canvas","size":"28\" x 22\" (71 cm x 56 cm)","property":null,"coa":null,"provenance":"Private collection, Manila","exhibited":null,"literature":"Hufana, Alejandrino G., ed. Pamana 13 June 1974: A Cultural Quarterly Published by the Cultural Center of the Philippines. Manila: Cultural Center of the Philippines, 1974. Listed on page 18 as “201. THE CLOWN” or \"206. MASK FOR A LADY\" under the artist's list of paintings.\n\nTiongson, Nicanor G., ed. Artista ng Bayan 1991. Cultural Center of the Philippines. Manila. 1991. Listed on page 36 as “201. THE CLOWN” or \"206. MASK FOR A LADY\" under HR Ocampo's \"List of Paintings (Partial)\"","write_up":"Hernando R. Ocampo’s “Transitional Period,” spanning from 1945 to 1963, came right on the heels of a particularly harrowing period of his life. From February to October 1945, he was detained in Muntinlupa by the American Counter-Intelligence Corps (CIC) on the accusation of being a collaborator, with his companions including Claro M. Recto, Jose P. Laurel, and Victorio Edades. Even more harrowing, three months into his detention, his first wife, Irene Illorato, perished, leaving their three children motherless. <br> Following Liberation, it took Ocampo nearly five years to get back on his feet. Though he immediately found employment as Chief of the Publishing and Script Departments at Palaris Films and Fernando Poe Productions, it was only around the turn of the decade in the 1950s that Ocampo entered a period of productivity both in painting and in writing. This release from emotional tension he acknowledges from the stabilizing force of Cresencia Valenzuela, a singer whom he met through his work as a director for serial soap opera dramas on the radio, and his eventual wife. <br> During this period, non-objective painting became the artist’s main interest. His style changed, becoming increasingly abstract as the subject matter became less and less recognizable. His works were simplified into cleancut geometric lines and overlapping planes, becoming what his biographer Angel G. de Jesus described as a “living, organic, logical unit.” <br> Ocampo’s Mask series breathed its first breath in this momentous period of his artistic career, with its earliest iterations dating as far back as the 1950s. He was asked once about the origins of the leitmotifs of his art, wherein he replied: <br>“From nature. From everything around me. Fish forms from the fried fish we eat at our table. Leaf forms from the plants all around, and the flames or tongues of fire evolved from the leaf forms. Masks from a book I picked up on African masks, and then from another book on the art of the South Pacific for which I definitely felt an affinity… I paint from nostalgia and specifically from memories of my childhood.” (Emphasis added by the author) <br>Indeed, it seems as though these masks, or Totem poles, left such great inspiration to Ocampo, as evidenced in this 1961 piece. Here, Ocampo references the specific curves and distinct exaggerations of the masks, still tethering between his “Proletarian” period of relatively figurative works and his non-objective “Mutants” period. <br>One of the most remarkable things about Ocampo’s body of work is that it is he who arguably made the most Filipino painting of his generation. A self-educated local artist, he refused offers to study abroad. He had never seen the original works of foreign artists; instead, he learned of them through reproductions in photos and books. Critics unanimously agree that he is the most original and the foremost exponent of the Filipino style, with Emmanuel Torres’s November 5, 1954 issue of Weekly Women’s Magazine saying this of Ocampo: <br>“In spite of hostile opposition, Ocampo has for the last years produced a substantial body of paintings which are the most daring and original in the Orient.” <br>Ocampo’s Mask series was created at the perfect junction between his objective and abstract periods. He brings a distinct Filipino twist to an otherwise foreign cultural symbol. As Torres writes, his “subject matter is completely incidental in favor of a purer visual language of lines, color orchestration, spaces, masses, and textures.” His works transcend time, space, and cultures. (Hannah Andrea Valiente)","lot_group":"PAINTING","lot_details_html":null,"alias":null,"hp":6000000,"bp":0.2016,"isWithdrawn":0,"accounting_hp":6000000,"userBid":34,"isPaid":0,"userId":34,"lot_status":"SOLD","isDone":1,"bid_history_id":19465,"reserve_price":0,"hammer_price":7209600,"fav":0},"image":[{"id":66787,"img_url":"https://leongallery.sgp1.digitaloceanspaces.com/v2/auction/203/236/lot/61.jpg","isFeatured":1},{"id":67021,"img_url":"https://leongallery.sgp1.digitaloceanspaces.com/v2/auction/203/236/lot/61c.jpg","isFeatured":0},{"id":67020,"img_url":"https://leongallery.sgp1.digitaloceanspaces.com/v2/auction/203/236/lot/61b.jpg","isFeatured":0},{"id":67019,"img_url":"https://leongallery.sgp1.digitaloceanspaces.com/v2/auction/203/236/lot/61a.jpg","isFeatured":0}]},"increment":[5500000,6000000,6500000,7000000,7500000,8000000,8500000,9000000,9500000,10000000,11000000,12000000,13000000,14000000,15000000,16000000,17000000,18000000,19000000,20000000],"prev":60,"next":62,"count_bid":0,"bid_history":[],"tokenExpired":1}