Ayala Museum pays homage to the life and works of the first National Artist, with Amorsolo’s Women: Concealed and Revealed which will run from 24 October 2008 to 8 March 2009 in the Third Floor Galleries.

Fernando Cueto Amorsolo (1892-1972) became known as the “painter of Philippine sunlight” because his works captured the brilliance and shimmer of the Philippine sun. Amorsolo also painted the glow from within—Filipino values, character, and soul. His genre paintings that feature women draw inspiration from the lives of ordinary folk, portraying their industry, integrity, and resilience. Many of the paintings of Amorsolo in pre-war years were dalagang bukid types, tangible expressions of the prevailing sentiments of optimism and hope-filled visions of the Philippines.

Amorsolo’s early charcoal studies and bocetos (initial oil sketches) from the 1920s were extensions of his beaux arts training and evidence of a mastery of his craft. He continued to work with professional models and his post war sketches reveal him at his most spontaneous. The two-hour sessions a day that he earmarked for nude studies offered him respite from the numerous commissioned portraits and genre paintings that piled up in his studio. Interestingly, he kept these charcoal and pencil drawings mostly for himself and his family and reserved the painted nudes for select clients.

Through these images the exhibition will investigate possible themes of power and gender, costume as identity, and nationhood as embodied by his portrayal of the Filipino woman. The exhibition will survey Amorsolo’s rendering of women from the country maidens during the American period to the nude studies from the post war years and will be a fitting tribute to the artist’s brilliance.

As part of the exhibition, a short gallery tour and art activity for children, Amazing Amorsolo, will be held on the following Saturdays, October 25, November 15 and 29, December 6, 2008, and January 10 and 24, February 14 and 28, and March 7, 2009, at 3:00 p.m.

A special gallery tour of the exhibition to be conducted by curator Petty Benitez-Johannot will also be held on Friday, 7 November 2008, at 7:15 p.m.

For more information on our educational programs, please call Duffie at 757-7117 to 21 local 29 or email education@ayalamuseum.org.

Amorsolo’s Women: Concealed and Revealed is part of the series of exhibitions entitled His Art, Our Heart, a four-month multi-venue initiative that aims to take another look at Amorsolo’s life and works.

Also part of the Amorsolo retrospective are the following exhibitions:
     · Capturing Anxieties: Amorsolo, His Contemporaries and Pictures of the War
            23 September to 16 November 2008
            UP Jorge B. Vargas Museum and Filipiniana Research Center
     · Tell-Tale: The Artist as Storyteller, Amorsolo as Co-Author
            24 September 2008 to 4 April 2009
            Lopez Memorial Museum
     · Days of Drawing, Portraits of Passage
            25 September 2008 to 15 January 2009
            National Art Gallery of the National Museum of the Philippines
     · bayANInanding: The Motherland and the Harvest of Maestro Amorsolo
            26 September 2008 to 13 January 2009
            Metropolitan Museum of Manila
     · Mukhang Tsinoy: Portraits by Fernando Amorsolo
            1 October 2008 to 17 January 2009
            Yuchengco Museum
     · SALIW: Rituals in Amorsolo’s Art
            2 October to 20 December 2008
            GSIS Museum of Art

For more information on the retrospective, please call 816-6601 or visit www.amorsoloretro.com.

For details and inquiries on this exhibition, please call 757-7117 to 21 local 28.

Ayala Museum is located at the corner of Makati Avenue and De la Rosa Street, Greenbelt Park, Makati City.