{"status":true,"msg":{"data":{"id":47284,"auction_id":95,"set_id":125,"lot_number":"36","artist":"José Joya (1931 - 1995)","title":"Picnic at the Great Wall II","starting_price":12000000,"signed_dated":"signed and dated 1973 (lower right)","medium":"oil on wood","size":"48\" x 64\" (122 cm x 163 cm)","property":null,"coa":"Accompanied by a certificate issued by Mr. Alexander Richard Joya Baldovino confirming the authenticity of this lot","provenance":"The Luz Gallery","exhibited":"The Luz Gallery, Joya: New Paintings, Makati, November 8 - 27, 1973","literature":null,"write_up":"In mid-1972, Jose Joya, during his deanship at the University of the Philippines College of Fine Arts (he was appointed in 1970 and would serve until 1978), embarked on a 16-day visit to China as chairperson of the Philippine First Educators' Group Delegation to the country. Joya was part of the Southeast Asia Regional Artists Conference, and he was tasked to formally present a letter of invitation to the Art Society of Peking to attend the said conference.<br /><br />While in China, Joya visited the cities of Canton, Beijing, Nanjing, Hangzhou, and Shanghai, where he came face- to-face with contemporary Chinese aesthetics, particularly socialist art.<br /><br />In the book Joya: Drawings, eminent art critic Leonidas V. Benesa writes that while in China, Joya also \"...did several sketches of ordinary people...as well as familiar sights and landmarks by the Pearl and Yangtze waterways.\" In a September 1973 interview with Cid Reyes and published in his Conversation on Philippine Art, Joya, himself one of the most traveled Filipino artists, also revealed that his trip to China was among the most memorable.<br /><br />Joya's lingering memories of his Chinese sojourn are evident in this 1973 work, Picnic at the Great Wall. Here, we see Joya's trademark geometric block-like forms that resemble the ancient stones and bricks of the Great Wall of China. The composition is predominantly bathed in varying shades of yellow, with golden yellow serving as the standout hue. In Imperial China, golden yellow was a color reserved for the emperor. The color also refers to the yellow sediments of the Huang He River, popularly known as the “Yellow River,” the birthplace of Chinese civilization. In the work at hand, Joya employs yellow as a historic reference to the Great Wall as the paramount symbol of Imperial China’s commitment to safeguard its territory and civilization.<br /><br />Picnic at the Great Wall would be exhibited at a landmark 1973 show at The Luz Gallery aptly titled “Joya: New Paintings.” Esteemed poet, painter, printmaker, and titan of Philippine literature Hilario Francia, Jr. would comment on the show in his The Philippines Daily Express column dated November 30, 1973. He writes: “...It is evident now that his [Joya’s] art and craft has finally reached a high point of development—requiring skills of a high order—that the observation of critic Leonidas Benesa that Joya is the foremost ‘exponent of pure painting’ is now adequately supported by his latest and most outstanding performance to date.”<br /><br /> Furthermore, this work shows Joya's abandonment of the abstract expressionist language that characterized much of his paintings from the 1950s to the late 1960s. Picnic at the Great Wall epitomizes Joya's transition from dynamic and vigorous abstract expressionism to spontaneous, lyrical geometric expressionism characterized by a further exploration of calligraphic-like patterns. Benesa notes that \"... by 1967, the enthusiasm of the artist as a painter of abstract expressionist landscapes...appeared to have run its course...”<br /><br />Joya's employment of geometric expressionism was a conscious attempt to integrate indigenous elements into his art. Although influenced by the serial style of Pop Art, which was the dominant style in America in the late 1960s when Joya pursued his Rockefeller and Ford scholarships, Joya's block-like figures, with their contiguous repetition and pattern, resemble more the recurring geometric patterns and shapes found in the art—particularly in textiles weaving and ornaments—of the indigenous peoples of the Philippines. Joya's employment of such can be traced back to 1967, upon his second New York sojourn. Of this, he says in the Benesa book: \"At this time, the study of Philippine history engaged me. Digging into rare sources, I came across materials that gave light facets to Philippine history.\" This he had done as a contemplative search for personal artistic identity within the context of the collective cultural. It was in line with his creative pursuit of wedding his Filipino sensibility that flows through his blood with his landscapes of the psyche, \"of the noumena rather than the phenomena,\" as Benesa puts it.<br /><br />Interestingly, prior to this work at hand, Joya had also envisioned a design center at the UP campus integrating indigenous design/folk art.<br /><br />Various factors also influenced Joya's venture into his native sensibilities: the nationalistic fervor of the 1960s characterized by the fueling dissent against US imperialism and solidarity with the wars of national liberation (particularly in Cuba, Vietnam, and the Philippines). Also, Joya's interest in Philippine history by the late 1960s coincided with its reevaluation from a nationalist historiographical standpoint, with Teodoro Agoncillo and Renato Constantino at the helm. As Joya says in the Benesa book, \"Artists respond to interests prevailing during their times.\"<br /><br /> When Joya painted this work, the artist added a string of local and international recognitions to his ever-strengthening accomplishments. In 1973, he was awarded a \"Citation for Meritorious Contribution to Art\" by the influential Art Association of the Philippines during its 25th anniversary. That same year, the UP Alumni Association honored him with the \"Most Distinguished Professional Award in Fine Arts.\" Just a year prior, in 1972, Joya was listed in the \"International Who's Who in Art and Antiques\" by London's Melrose Press. (Adrian Maranan)","lot_group":"Painting","lot_details_html":null,"alias":null,"hp":17000000,"bp":0.2016,"isWithdrawn":0,"accounting_hp":17000000,"userBid":5926,"isPaid":0,"userId":22,"lot_status":"SOLD","isDone":1,"bid_history_id":null,"reserve_price":0,"hammer_price":20427200,"fav":0},"image":[{"id":46974,"img_url":"https://leongallery.sgp1.digitaloceanspaces.com/v2/auction/95/125/lot/36.jpg","isFeatured":1}]},"increment":[11000000,12000000,13000000,14000000,15000000,16000000,17000000,18000000,19000000,20000000],"prev":35,"next":37,"count_bid":0,"bid_history":[],"tokenExpired":1}