{"status":true,"msg":{"data":{"id":48790,"auction_id":98,"set_id":129,"lot_number":"711","artist":"Nena Saguil (1924-1994)","title":"A New Heavens and a New Earth","starting_price":100000,"signed_dated":"signed and dated 1989 - 93 (lower right)","medium":"oil on canvas","size":"19 1/2” x 39” (50 cm x 99 cm)","property":null,"coa":null,"provenance":"From The Nena L. Saguil Foundation Art Collection","exhibited":null,"literature":null,"write_up":"Towards the mid-1970s and the early 1980s, Nena Saguil gravitated towards religion, having been converted from Catholicism to the millenarian restorationist Christian denomination, Jehovah’s Witnesses, whose bold proselytization and renewal of operations in France after World War II was instrumental in Saguil’s conversion to the faith. Prior to that, Saguil’s works beginning in the 1960s exhibited a sublime transition from the material to the spiritual, from the physical to the metaphysical. Settling in Paris, the global art capital, at the age of 42, meant a myriad of risks and struggles for Saguil, foremost of which are improving her craft and the relentless search for a unique personal and artistic identity amid a rapidly changing art landscape.
In the late ‘70s to the mid-’80s, Saguil’s art further metamorphosed, albeit retaining that lyrical character. Although painted towards the latter part of her career and life, this piece, titled A New Heaven and A New Earth, one of Saguil’s last works, encapsulates that further exploration and development. From the monochromes of her Lyrical Abstraction stage, Saguil employed a prismatic palette characterized by what Torres referred to as “softer tones, smooth textures, and colors neatly layered like rainbow bands of yellow, blue, purple, and orange, each blurring into the next, and all together producing a rich paste luster.”
Finished a year before her death in 1994, A New Heaven and A New Earth is inscribed with a passage from the book of Revelation: “[Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth,] for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more.” This piece gives an insight into Saguil’s spirituality and beliefs as a Jehovah’s Witness. As a millenarian Christian group, eschatology, or the conceptions of the end of times, is central to the faith of the Jehovah’s Witnesses, upholding the belief that Armageddon and God’s final judgment are imminent.
The color palette of this piece is noticeably soft and pastel-like and imbued with a mystical luminescence. The otherworldly vividness of this piece alludes to Saguil’s fulfillment in her life and art and her gratitude to God for her renewed perspectives on religion and spirituality. But in a foreboding manner, could this piece, especially with its inscription from the eschatological Book of Revelations, be a foreshadowing of her peaceful death, her acceptance of her last days on earth? Only her God, and perhaps Saguil to an extent, could have known such a thing. (Adrian Maranan)","lot_group":"PAINTING","lot_details_html":null,"alias":null,"hp":280000,"bp":0.2016,"isWithdrawn":0,"accounting_hp":280000,"userBid":6890,"isPaid":0,"userId":22,"lot_status":"SOLD","isDone":1,"bid_history_id":null,"reserve_price":null,"hammer_price":336448,"fav":0},"image":[{"id":49224,"img_url":"https://leongallery.sgp1.digitaloceanspaces.com/v2/auction/98/129/lot/711.jpg","isFeatured":1}]},"increment":[220000,240000,260000,280000,300000,320000,340000,360000,380000,400000,450000,500000,550000,600000,650000,700000,750000,800000,900000,1000000,1100000,1200000,1300000,1400000,1500000,1600000,1700000,1800000,1900000,2000000,2200000,2400000,2600000,2800000,3000000,3200000,3400000,3600000,3800000,4000000,4200000,4400000,4600000,4800000,5000000,5500000,6000000,6500000,7000000,7500000,8000000,8500000,9000000,9500000,10000000,11000000,12000000,13000000,14000000,15000000,16000000,17000000,18000000,19000000,20000000],"prev":710,"next":712,"count_bid":0,"bid_history":[],"tokenExpired":1}