{"status":true,"msg":{"data":{"id":47363,"auction_id":95,"set_id":125,"lot_number":"114","artist":"Nena Saguil (1914 - 1994)","title":"Composition en noir et blanc (Composition in Black and White)","starting_price":3800000,"signed_dated":"signed and dated 1958 (lower right)","medium":"oil on canvas","size":"39 1/2\" x 28\" (100 cm x 71 cm)","property":null,"coa":"Accompanied by a certificate issued by Finale Art File confirming the authenticity of this lot","provenance":"Private collection, France","exhibited":null,"literature":null,"write_up":"Saguil’s Self-Titled “Lyrical Cubism” by LISA GUERRERO NAKPIL<br /><br />Striking out on her own from the Philippine Art Gallery to make her own mark in the Ecole de Paris, it is not surprising that Nena Saguil would absorb Picasso’s cubism in the same way that she drank of the heady air of one of the greatest art capitals of the world.<br /><br /> Her friend and fiercest defender, Leonidas V. Benesa would chronicle her “rectangular patternings” under the influence of one of her most significant mentors in the late 1950s, Alfred Manessier (1911-1993).<br /><br />Manessier was associated with the French movement of Lyrical Abstraction (Abstraction lyrique). Interestingly, in an interview with the art critic Cid Reyes published in his “Conversations in Philippine Art,” Saguil would use the similar term of “Lyrical Cubism” to describe this particular series of her artworks. More significantly, Mannesier also appeared to be an influence not only on her artistic but also her spiritual development.<br /><br /> Notes from the Guggenheim Museum archives offer these insights : “In 1943, Manessier experienced a religious awakening during a three-day retreat to a Trappist monastery. Soon after he converted to Roman Catholicism and began to pursue an increasingly ascetic lifestyle. \"In 1945 his compositions started to recall stained-glass windows and turned more abstract, although figurative elements connected to religion and landscape continued to appear. His paintings allude to religious meanings through their titles and through combinations of discernible symbols and abstract imagery.”<br /><br />The French artist, with the zeal of the newly converted, would thus seek to express his interest in mysticism, sacred art and of spiritual ecstasy, concepts that would dominate Saguil’s art more and more.<br /><br /> The work at hand pictures a dark universe that seems to be traveling in space. It is illuminated by an other-worldly light that comes from fallen stars and fragmented moons. It is one of the rare examples of Saguil’s “Lyrical Cubism” that draws from the original elements of the Ecole de Paris or School of Paris.<br /><br /> Cid Reyes would later write, “The late critic Leo Benesa wrote of “stillness” and “nightness” as distinguishing qualities of her paintings. Her works affirm the consistent themes of Saguil : order and serenity, the solitude and mystery of the cosmos, and exploration of man’s sense of eternity.”","lot_group":"Painting","lot_details_html":null,"alias":null,"hp":3800000,"bp":0.2016,"isWithdrawn":0,"accounting_hp":3800000,"userBid":5930,"isPaid":0,"userId":22,"lot_status":"SOLD","isDone":1,"bid_history_id":null,"reserve_price":null,"hammer_price":4566080,"fav":0},"image":[{"id":47053,"img_url":"https://leongallery.sgp1.digitaloceanspaces.com/v2/auction/95/125/lot/114.jpg","isFeatured":1}]},"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":113,"next":115,"count_bid":0,"bid_history":[],"tokenExpired":1}