{"status":true,"msg":{"data":{"id":47414,"auction_id":95,"set_id":125,"lot_number":"166","artist":"Romeo Tabuena (1921- 2015)","title":"Still Life","starting_price":600000,"signed_dated":"signed and dated 1989 (lower right)","medium":"oil on canvas","size":"36\" x 43\" (91 cm x 109cm)","property":null,"coa":null,"provenance":"Private colletion, USA","exhibited":null,"literature":null,"write_up":"Throughout history, still-life portraits have been a staple for many artists. A tableau of the life lived by the humans before they left the canvas, a still-life painting expresses a world devoid of its inhabitants but still bearing their reflections. Even without humans present, the flowers and the bowl of fruits on the table all tell a story – these objective facts are depicted through the subjective lens of the artist, each yielding a different story.<br /><br />For Romeo Tabuena, his still-life paintings show his inclinations toward the Filipino and Mexican cultures. Born in the Philippines, Tabuena’s brief sojourn to Allende, Mexico turned to a permanent residence when he fell in love with the tight-knit artistic community. Here his translucent and fluid forms took on a blocky opaque quality akin to the Mexican sensibilities at the time, bright and luminescent featuring every color on the spectrum.<br /><br />Still Life (1989) features Tabuena’s blocky cubist forms. Using vibrant colors, Tabuena depicts several items displayed atop a table – a fan, watermelons, a fruit basket, a jug, and a cage of birds. From the watermelons that are locally grown in these countries to the guitar that feature heavily in each country’s local music, these items are culturally loaded in both the Philippines and Mexico.<br /><br />“[Tabuena is] a gentle soul who appreciated … the many similarities between Mexico and the Philippines,” Bibsy M. Carballo said and his oeuvre shows his ever-growing appreciation. His works transcend geographical boundaries, marrying the culture of his hometown and the country he chose to live in to create culturally and visually vibrant pieces. (Hannah Valiente)","lot_group":"Painting","lot_details_html":null,"alias":null,"hp":1300000,"bp":0.2016,"isWithdrawn":0,"accounting_hp":1300000,"userBid":5926,"isPaid":0,"userId":22,"lot_status":"SOLD","isDone":1,"bid_history_id":null,"reserve_price":null,"hammer_price":1562080,"fav":0},"image":[{"id":46922,"img_url":"https://leongallery.sgp1.digitaloceanspaces.com/v2/auction/95/125/lot/166.jpg","isFeatured":1}]},"increment":[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":165,"next":167,"count_bid":0,"bid_history":[],"tokenExpired":1}