{"status":true,"msg":{"data":{"id":45762,"auction_id":92,"set_id":121,"lot_number":"108","artist":"Vicente Manansala (1910 - 1981)","title":"Nude","starting_price":500000,"signed_dated":"signed, dated and inscribed Paris, 1950 (lower left)","medium":"oil on wood","size":"22” x 18” (56 cm x 46 cm)","property":null,"coa":null,"provenance":"Saint Paul Auction, 20th Century Art - Design - Street Art,\nLa Colle-sur-Loup, France, 19 May 2024, Lot 107","exhibited":null,"literature":null,"write_up":"This early work by Manansala from his Parisian Period of 1950-51 shows the modernist maestro bridging the gap between his academic past and his neorealist inclination, the distillation of the figure yet retaining its humanistic essence. This painting had recently been rediscovered in a private collection in the South of France, which Manansala visited during his Parisian sojourn as evidenced by a watercolor work depicting the scenic island of Port-Cros, now home to a national park.


Manansala’s “Identity Crisis” of the Early ‘50s

At the Ecole des Beaux-Arts de Banff in Alberta, Canada in 1949, Manansala felicitously had his first brush with Cubism through Joe Plaskett. In his all-important monograph on Manansala, Rod. Paras-Perez notes that the artist’s initial dabble into Cubism while in Canada would take hold of his artistic vision, albeit gradually.

“Manansala left Canada without having done enough \ncubist landscapes akin to Joe Plaskett’s,” Paras-Perez writes. \n“But the germ of a vision was already in him. There was \nexasperation in his inability to produce a body of works in \nthe newfound direction. He knew with certitude that future \npaintings would be touched by the vision.”

Manansala’s primary luminary, Botong Francisco, and his \nstyle would still take hold of his identity. He would then \nadmit in a 1973 interview with Cid Reyes that not only did he \nemulate the essence of Botong’s style, but also the “feeling.”\nHowever, this influence disturbed Manansala, as he was \nnow in his middle age and still unable to master a style of \nhis own. Also, the Filipino modernists’ resolve to break away \nfrom the Amorsolo tradition was only getting more intense, \nfurther spurred by the destruction brought by the war.\nManansala had a “creative identity crisis.” Aside from casting \naway his “Botong-ness,” he had to find a way to bridge his \npartiality for figurative painting—honed at the UP School of \nFine and shaped to modernity by Botong’s influence—and \nhis newfound experience of total abstraction that is Cubism.


A Filipino Boursier in The City of Lights

In September 1950, the French Government awarded \nManansala the privilege of being a boursier or scholar \nat the Ecole des Beaux-Arts of the University of Paris. He \nbecame the first Filipino to be accorded such distinction. \nThe scholarship, which was secured by Jacques Grobois \nof the French international news agency Agence France\u0002Presse from the French government, was originally given to \nH.R. Ocampo, who sadly declined it as he was his family’s \nbreadwinner. It was then given to Manansala, whose plane \ntickets were paid for by Pura Villanueva-Kalaw.

Manansala came under the artistic guidance of venerable \nmasters, including the cubists Fernand Leger and Andre \nLhote, the great Fauve Maurice de Vlaminck, and the French \nmodernist Jean Lombard. He also frequented the Lapin a \nGill, the famous Montmartre cabaret once frequented by \nthe likes of Picasso, Braque, and Matisse.

An interesting footnote in Manansala’s Parisian sojourn is \nthat unlike other artists, he relatively did not experience \nmajor financial struggles Carmen Guerrero-Nakpil, in her \nWeekly Women’s Magazine article titled “One Year of the \nPAG,” writes that “Manansala…who studied and observed in \nParis…sold every painting he produced in that discriminating \ncity.” This ease of financial burden was also assisted by the \npension grant given to Manansala by the Roseville College \nin Sampaloc, Manila before he left.


In Paris, Manansala’s Creative Core Was Shaken

In the former global art capital, until everything else shifted \nto New York, Manansala found dynamic solace. In fact, \nhe himself said that his stay in Paris was “the most alive \nsegment of my life.” He visited museums, such as the Louvre, \ntrying to uncover the feeling of each artwork he saw, rather \nthan looking at what technique was used.

In Paris, his distinct Cubist identity began to be solidified \nthrough his studies with Leger. But it was the French painter \nGen Paul, dubbed “The Last Great Painter of Montmartre,” \nthat greatly influenced Manansala.

Manansala did not escape the spellbinding charm of hilly \nMontmartre—the heart and soul of bohemian Paris that \nbirthed the great styles of Impressionism, Fauvism, and \nCubism and a place once called home by van Gogh, Braque, \nand Picasso among others. In his reminiscences, Manansala \nraved on Montmartre’s “exuberant air of freedom and \ntolerance.” It was in this place that he befriended Gen Paul, \nwhom he fortuitously met at a café and had a chat with \n(Manansala recounts that he did not recognize Gen Paul at \nfirst until a friend came and slapped him on the shoulder, \nsaying it was the person whom he wanted to meet since his \narrival in Paris.).

“[Gen Paul] used to invite me to his atelier, and I talked to \nhim and watched him while he worked, and then he would \nhaunt the cafes of Montmartre and talk about things most \nintimate to artists and painters,” Manansala recounts. “[In \nhim], I found again the definitions of true art.”\nManansala continues, “I spent long hours listening to him \ntalk, or watching him work, and always, in many eloquent \nways, he projected that importance of deliberate persistence \nto search for the true expression, the true condition of mind, \nbody, and soul dedicated to the clear approach to beauty, \ntruth, and the basic and significant.”\n

Through Gen Paul, Manansala arrived at a consequential \nendeavor, which, in his own words, is “to search for the true \nand pure expression.”


Nude In An Armchair, \nA Turning Point in Manansala’s Career

This 1950 work titled Nude in an Armchair sees Manansala \nventuring into a resolution. The nude figure was where \nManansala wedded his conservative training and flourishing \nyet still anxious modernist identity.

“For many artists like Manansala, who have been trained in \nthe classical tradition, drawing the human form is still the \npeak to be scaled, the Mount Everest that unlocks vistas of \nfine painting,” Paras-Perez writes in the book Manansala: \nNudes. Not only that “it remained for him the ultimate \ntest of good draftsmanship,” as Paras-Perez notes, but it \n“remained his regular affirmation and paean to discipline \nand virtuosity.”

In the work at hand, the background and the flooring are \nessentially rendered in a cubist configuration. Characteristic \nof Manansala’s future trademark practice, he eschews depth \nin favor of flatness, in which background and foreground \nvisually merge into one. Notice that the background and \nflooring are homogenized through the shunning of depth, \na fundamental of Cubism. Colors are whimsical, much like \nin the manner of the Fauvists. This is likely an influence of \nVlaminck and of Gen Paul, whose manner of using color \nis in line with spontaneity and fluidity. This kind of color \napplication also evokes Manansala’s dynamic character as \na master colorist.

The nude figure stands out from the composition through \nits relative brightness, her skin luminous, with tinges of \nwhite and varying gradations of tones showing Manansala \nexperimenting on a transparent effect. The subject possesses \na bold elegance that still evokes Botong’s style. Smooth \nbrushwork characterizes the entire composition, consistent \nwith Manansala’s classical training.

At the same time, the figure retains the adherence to the \nhuman body’s form and proportion, the necessity to maintain \nits naturalistic essence while distorting it at the same time. \nThis not only highlights Manansala’s dexterity in the human \nfigure cultivated through his conservative schooling but also \na foreshadowing of his future style, in which he preserves the \nsheer realism of a particular subject through delicate planes \nof superimposed transparency, a reminder of his Neo\u0002Realist identity to fragment and recreate, drawn from the \nharrowing experiences of the world war and the restoration \nof humanity amid the ruins.

Manansala certainly knew that to free one’s creative mind, \none must first subscribe to the traditions to learn how to break \nthem. Nude in an Armchair shows Manansala in transition, \nbridging the gap between his conservative education and \nhis appetite for neo-realist boldness, a harmony among \ntechnique, form, and essence, and personal expression, \npaving the way for his iconic Transparent Cubism.

A charcoal drawing by Manansala, done at the same time \nframe as the work on offer, was auctioned by Leon Gallery \nin 2017, depicting the same model, with her hair tied up, \nsitting in the same chair in the same room. Manansala \nlearned from Gen Paul the importance of experimenting \non various expressions until one arrives at the “true and \npure expression.” Manansala writes, “I have watched him, \nday after day, work on the linear representation of a model \nplaying with a guitar. Every day, he did the same stint again \nand again, yesterday’s effort a different work from today’s \nand tomorrow’s another expression of the same model.”","lot_group":"PAINTING","lot_details_html":null,"alias":null,"hp":0,"bp":0.2016,"isWithdrawn":0,"accounting_hp":0,"userBid":5930,"isPaid":0,"userId":22,"lot_status":"UNSOLD","isDone":1,"bid_history_id":null,"reserve_price":0,"hammer_price":0,"fav":0},"image":[{"id":44486,"img_url":"https://leongallery.sgp1.digitaloceanspaces.com/v2/auction/92/121/lot/108.jpg","isFeatured":1},{"id":44816,"img_url":"https://leongallery.sgp1.digitaloceanspaces.com/v2/auction/92/121/lot/108d.jpg","isFeatured":0},{"id":44815,"img_url":"https://leongallery.sgp1.digitaloceanspaces.com/v2/auction/92/121/lot/108c.jpg","isFeatured":0},{"id":44814,"img_url":"https://leongallery.sgp1.digitaloceanspaces.com/v2/auction/92/121/lot/108b.jpg","isFeatured":0}]},"increment":[450000,500000,550000,600000,650000,700000,750000,800000,900000,1000000,1100000,1200000,1300000,1400000,1500000,1600000,1700000,1800000,1900000,2000000,2200000,2400000,2600000,2800000,3000000,3200000,3400000,3600000,3800000,4000000,4200000,4400000,4600000,4800000,5000000,5500000,6000000,6500000,7000000,7500000,8000000,8500000,9000000,9500000,10000000,11000000,12000000,13000000,14000000,15000000,16000000,17000000,18000000,19000000,20000000],"prev":107,"next":109,"count_bid":0,"bid_history":[],"tokenExpired":1}