{"status":true,"msg":{"data":{"id":47299,"auction_id":95,"set_id":125,"lot_number":"47","artist":"Anita Magsaysay-Ho (1914 - 2012)","title":"Planting Rice","starting_price":18000000,"signed_dated":"signed and dated 1990 (lower left)","medium":"oil on canvas","size":"36\" x 30\" (91 cm x 76 cm)","property":null,"coa":null,"provenance":"A gift from the artist","exhibited":null,"literature":null,"write_up":"It may not be entirely accidental that there are so few paintings with the theme “Planting Rice” by Anita Magsaysay-Ho, despite the fact that its iconic subject matter would have been an important narrative in her over- arching theme of the Filipina at work.<br /><br />Perhaps the clue lies in the history of the “Planting Rice” painting which was made famous by the turn-of-the-century artist Fabian de la Rosa. For de la Rosa, this seminal work would win him a gold at the World’s Fair of St. Louis in 1904 and would mark the passing of the torch from Juan Luna to de la Rosa himself, as the Spanish empire gave way to the North American.<br /><br />It would be Fabian’s nephew, Fernando Amorsolo, however, who would make “Planting Rice” famous across the archipelago, replicated in countless newspapers and magazines, and most importantly calendars that would grace Filipino homes across the country.<br /><br /> Anita Magsaysay-Ho’s first formal training would be at the College of Fine Arts at the University of the Philippines over which both men presided : the former as influential dean and the latter as her instructor.<br /><br />Anita would very soon shift allegiances from the classical school to the avant-garde world of abstract art championed by the Cranbrook Academy of Art where she went for post- grad studies as well as that melting-pot of cutting-edge art, the Philippine Art Gallery.<br /><br />From the 1950s onwards, Anita would depict women harvesters, including several works entitled “Sheaves”, showing females carrying long golden stalks of rice, a couple of them of women pounding the grain.<br /><br />Magsaysay-Ho would very rarely depict the iconic scene of planting rice, with only one other documented titled “In Anita Magsaysay-Ho the Rice Field” (1962). Her description of “rich green tones and in the Impressionist style” would be the same as if it were written for the work at hand. “This is a scene from my childhood which I remember well — there is great dignity in their work.”<br /><br />In “Planting Rice”, three women prepare the rice to be planted in the muddy fields. One woman in the background already stands in the pilapil, ready to press the shoots in the soft earth. The others hold the green stems gracefully as if they were doing a dance. The color palette is extremely soothing in cool blues and violets, very much different from Amorsolo’s sunlit vistas.<br /><br />For Fabian de la Rosa and Fernando Amorsolo, “Planting Rice” would also be a metaphor of female fertility, certainly a symbol of the docile, compliant Filipina woman, the dutiful helpmate of the farmer and his life. She would be silent, smiling, and self-sacrificing. In Anita Magsaysay Ho’s delicate but firm hands, “Planting Rice” would become a story of the strong woman, fending for herself and achieving without boundaries. It’s a worthy symbol on the occasion of her 110th anniversary, as one of the foremost of the Filipino Moderns.<br /><br />This year, the Venice Biennale will celebrate Anita Magsaysay-Ho at the 60th International Art Exhibition, the centerpiece of the influential biennial, where her art and life will be celebrated in the group show “Stranieri Ovunque – Foreigners Everywhere.”<br /><br /> It will not only highlight artists who are foreigners, immigrants, expatriates, diasporic emigres, exiled individuals, or refugees, but more importantly, spotlight artworks created in the past century that are now points of reference for the new generations.”","lot_group":"Painting","lot_details_html":null,"alias":null,"hp":26000000,"bp":0.2016,"isWithdrawn":0,"accounting_hp":26000000,"userBid":5930,"isPaid":0,"userId":22,"lot_status":"SOLD","isDone":1,"bid_history_id":null,"reserve_price":null,"hammer_price":31241600,"fav":0},"image":[{"id":46988,"img_url":"https://leongallery.sgp1.digitaloceanspaces.com/v2/auction/95/125/lot/47.jpg","isFeatured":1}]},"increment":[],"prev":46,"next":48,"count_bid":0,"bid_history":[],"tokenExpired":1}