{"status":true,"msg":{"data":{"id":38718,"auction_id":53,"set_id":81,"lot_number":"177","artist":"Benedicto Cabrera  (b.1942)","title":"Imaginary Portrait of Sabel","starting_price":1600000,"signed_dated":"signed and dated 1970 (lower right)","medium":"Ink & Acrylic On Paper","size":"22 1/2” x 21” (57 cm x 53 cm)","property":null,"coa":null,"provenance":"Ambassador and Mrs. Manolo Lopez Private Collection","exhibited":null,"literature":"Literature: Krip Yuson and Cid Reyes, BENCAB, Mantes Publishing Inc., Manila, 2002, p. 93 (illustrated)","write_up":"The book BENCAB by Krip Yison and Cid Reyes says: “In the 1970s, with the onslaught of minimalism, the figure of Sabel resurfaced as a sleek, shape-specific form, recast in space with the fluidity of the human body. Bencab sent the Sabel image on a spin of varying idioms, riveted in turns on a planar, geometric structure and a general, painterly surface.” \nThe psychedelia of the late 60s zeitgeist resulted in ‘The Bold Look’ that was the aesthetic of pop culture in the year 1970. \n“The viewer immediately senses the intrusion of the artist’s presence in visual devices that control or motivate the spatial complexity of each  painting.  There are characteristic grid-like divisions of space, the geometric blocking of areas of darkness, the streamlined bands of muted colors that seem to cut into the figures’ psychic space and the asymmetrical deployment of the bodies that startle the composition.” \n1969’s “Imaginary Portrait of Sabel” featuring her (backside) getting out of a central geometric portal or door which became a recurring  geometric motif in such works as “The Door”, “Door I”, “Door II”, “Door III”, and this work, “Imaginary Portrait of Sabel II”, all done in 1970. \nIn “Imaginary Portrait of Sabel”, Sabel’s spectral white silhouette emerges from a sharply defined purple to black portal; overhead, a looming  silhouette of Sabel is contrasted by a slick, planar, orange color grid, all amid a black backdrop.  The book BENCAB says about this short, but  unusual period: “It seemed the Sabel image could not be transfixed on a permanent pictorial setting.” \nBencab simply made manifest even in ‘The Bold Look’ era what he was to tell Cid Reyes in 1978: “In so many paintings I did of her (Sabel),  she was…a “device”, as it were, on which I could anchor a composition. She became… a” structure” to base my paintings.”\nOther works from 1970, such as “Sabel in Transition”, “Cutout Figure of Sabel 1” and “Imaginary Portrait of Sabel III” added to this distinct  period of exploring Hard Edged painting that combined both the figurative and non-representational within a span of about two years. \nThe spectral form of Sabel incorporated within geometric abstract painting featured late Hard Edged Art tenets such as economy of forms, fullness of color, slick neat surfaces, and the non-relational arrangement of forms on the canvas. \n“BenCab’s infatuation with Minimalism, however, proved to be short lived.” But it remains a distinct period in his evolving oeuvre. \nThis exceptional work resumes BenCab’s ever recurring theme of women in draperies.  The woman is far from the tortured soul of BenCab’s madwoman, but the archetypal Sabel persists, what with the voluminous fabrics layered on her body.\nAlice Guillermo wrote in 2007: “One might say that the Sabel series, began in 1966 in the ink medium, is the quintessential Ben Cabrera.”","lot_group":"Painting","lot_details_html":"<p><strong>Benedicto Cabrera</strong> (b.1942)<br /><em>Imaginary Portrait of Sabel</em><br />signed and dated 1970 (lower right)<br />ink &amp; acrylic on paper <br />22 1/2&rdquo; x 21&rdquo; (57 cm x 53 cm)</p>","alias":"bencab","hp":5500000,"bp":0.168,"isWithdrawn":0,"accounting_hp":5500000,"userBid":5926,"isPaid":0,"userId":22,"lot_status":"SOLD","isDone":1,"bid_history_id":null,"reserve_price":null,"hammer_price":6424000,"fav":0},"image":[{"id":37044,"img_url":"https://leongallery.sgp1.digitaloceanspaces.com/v2/auction/53/81/lot/177.jpg","isFeatured":1}]},"increment":[5500000,6000000,6500000,7000000,7500000,8000000,8500000,9000000,9500000,10000000,11000000,12000000,13000000,14000000,15000000,16000000,17000000,18000000,19000000,20000000],"prev":176,"next":178,"count_bid":0,"bid_history":[],"tokenExpired":1}