Benedicto "Bencab" Reyes Cabrera is a celebrated modern Filipino painter and printmaker. In 2006, he was declared one of the National Artists of the Philippines for Visual Arts.

He has exhibited widely throughout the Philippines and in Asia, Europe, and the United States. His early themes reflected his growing years in the places like Bambang, Tondo, and Mayhaligi. His later paintings are concerned with the Philippines' colonial past, particularly the influences of the American and Spanish colonizers. Old photographs, especially those of women in turn-of-the century fashions, have influenced him in creating these works.


Personal Background

Born 10 April 1942 in Malabon, Manila at the onset of the Japanese occupation, Bencab was the youngest of the nine children of Democrito Cabrera and Isabel Reyes of Pampanga. 6 months after his birth, the family moved to Sta. Cruz, Manila.

He began painting on the pavement and on walls at the age of seven. He was influenced by his older brother Salvador, already an established artist who exposed him to the world of art.

In 1954 his family moved to Bambang, a bustling but poor district in Tondo, Manila. In this place, which was rich in colorful characters, he came to develop a deep sympathy for the less fortunate.


Education

While a grade 6 student at the Balagtas Elementary School in Bambang, Cabrera won his first art award in a poster contest with a human rights theme and received P100 as part of the First Prize.

As a student at the Arellano High School, he augmented his allowance by doing illustrations for his 59 classmates' science projects for PhP 0.50 to PhP l.00 and selling his portraits of James Dean and Elvis Presley for P10. He was part of the staff of the school paper The Tambuli.

In 1959, as one of the finalists of The Castro scholarship, he enrolled in the University of the Philippines' (U.P.) College of Fine Arts, major in illustration.


Career

Cabrera won 2nd prize at the 12th Shell National Students Art Competition for Blue Serenity, a surrealistic abstract painting of barung-barong (shanties).

One of his professors at U.P. was Jose Joya, whom he helped in creating the sets for the ballet Swan Lake staged at the Rizal Theater and U.P. Theater. He was also commissioned to illustrate two books and for a brief time was an instant portraitist.

In 1963 he won 1st prize for his oil painting of a talipapa (market) in the U.P. Student Council Art Competition.

He dropped out of college before finishing his degree and joined the new staff of Liwayway Magazine as illustrator along with Ang Kiukok, Alfredo Roces, Romy Mananquil, Arthur Nicdao, for three months. At the time, the magazine was being modernized by Morita Roces-Guerrero.

His first full-time job was with the United States Information Service as lay-out artist,work with led to his development of myopia.

In 1964, while at Bambang, he noticed Sabel, a bag lady/madwoman/scavenger who became for him a symbol of dislocation, despair and isolation, representing human dignity threatened by the harshness of life. She was to figure frequently in his works throughout the years.

As a rising artist, he decided to use the contraction Bencab to avoid confusion with other painters named Cabrera (a common Philippine surname). He and his brother set up a studio/workshop/gallery called Sining along with Bal Magallona Jr. and Edgar Soller on Mabini Street. Eventually they had to give up the place as they were unable to pay the rent.

In 1965, he took on several illustration jobs and dabbled in photography. He designed Mirror Magazine's Milestone magazine special. For the next three years, he worked as an illustrator for the Sunday Times Magazine as illustrator. Meanwhile, he was still developing his art, going on more sketching and photographic expeditions with fellow artists. With photographer Romy Vitug, he went on photography jaunts in the reclamation shantytown, which led to his "Barung-barong period" in his art. He exhibited at the AAP gallery in a three-man show, with Virgilio Aviado and Marciano Galang. This alliance would be repeated in two later exhibitions within the next twenty years. The following year, when he was 24, he held his first solo exhibition of oil and acrylic paintings at the Indigo Gallery in Mabini, which he had established with brother Salvador and other artists. This was the exhibit in which the character "Sabel" was first introduced.

At the 20th AAP Annual Exhibition and Competition he won three awards in the Photography category. He joined the Saturday Group in their Exhibition of Nudes at the Solidaridad Galleries.

At about this time, Arturo Luz discovered him. He included him in the Luz Gallery's exhibition, Young Artists 1968. In the same gallery, Cabrera had his second solo show, with 60 acrylics depicting Sabel, scavengers, laborers, and esteros. This exhibit formally launched his artistic career. That year he participated in the Tokyo Biennale in Japan.

The following year, along with Virgilio Aviado and Lamberto Hechanova, he represented the country at the renowned VI Paris Biennale, exhibiting hard-edged, spray-painted, abstract oil paintings. He traveled through several other countries as well, ending in London where he married his fiancée, English writer Caroline Kennedy. They had met some years earlier at the Indios Bravos, a favorite hangout of artists and writers that was located next to the Indigo Gallery. He and his wife raised a family in London. At first, he sold oriental antiques at the Chelsea flea market to augment his income. During these years he studied printmaking at the Chelsea School of Arts and exhibited in Spain as well as London. He discovered rare Filipiniana prints and photographs in London's antiquarian bookshops, which was to influence him in creating Larawan, a series of acrylic paintings that used sepia-toned images of the past in commenting on current issues. He returned to the Philippines two years after his recognition as one of the first recipients of the Thirteen Artists Award in 1970. Two years later, having witnessed the state of the Philippines under Martial Law, he returned to London and created works that dealt with political issues.

After his divorce in 1986, he returned to the Philippines in time to be a part of the EDSA Revolution of 1986. Inspired by the event, he painted a second version of his work Two Filipinas, a depiction of two women in turn-of-the-century dress with modern Westernized objects. This time, in honor of EDSA, the two women are showered by yellow confetti.

Bencab then settled down in Baguio, where he helped to set up the Baguio Arts Guild, along with Baguio-based artists Santiago Bose, Roberto Villanueva, Kidlat Tahimik, and others.


Some of his Achievements

* 1972 Larawan at The Luz Gallery
* 1978 Larawan II: The Filipino Abroad at The Luz Gallery, an off-shoot of the first Larawan exhibition
* 1981 Joins Nena Saguil, Macario Vitalis and Ofelia Gelvezon-Tequi in an exhibition Six Artistes Contemporains Philippins en Europe at the Academie Diplomatique Internationale in Paris.
* Holds a ten-year retrospective exhibition of prints in Ben Cabrera Etchings: 1970-1980 at the Museum of Philippine Art
* Exhibits a new series of colorful drawings Punks at the Tricycle Theater Gallery in London, which he co-curates.
* 1982 Joins Five Filipino Artists (with Cesar Legaspi, Ang Kiukok, Mauro Malang Santos & Ramon Gaston) at the Wraxall Gallery in London.
* 1984 Travels to Hawaii for Being Filipino: Paintings, Prints & Drawings, a major 12-year retrospective exhibition at the Focus Gallery of the Honolulu Academy of Arts.
* 1986 Selected Works at the Lopez Museum Memorial Gallery homecoming exhibition - a mini-retrospective focusing on the recent EDSA revolt.
* 1988 Recent Works at the October Gallery in London, including America Is In The Heart, a large oil painting inspired by the book by Carlos Bulosan
* Receives the Kalinangan (Cultural) Award For Painting from the Mayor of the City of Manila on the occasion of its founding day.
* Executes the stage design for choreographer Enrico Labayen's Sabel, a dance interpretation of his favorite subject, portrayed by Agnes Locsin in her final performance as a dancer
* 1992 Receives the Gawad CCP Para Sa Sining (CCP Award For The Arts) for Visual Arts
* Joins Ofelia Gelvezon-Tequi and Claude Tayag in an exhibition Three Filipino Artists at the Philippine Embassy Exhibition Hall in Beijing, China.
* 7th Asian International Art Exhibition
* 1994 Receives the Most Outstanding Kapampangan for Arts & Culture (Painting) Award from Philippine President Ramos on Pampanga Day, “for bringing honor to the people and province of Pampanga”, his native province.
* 1995 Featured artist for the Philippines in the exhibition Asian Modernism: Diverse Development In Indonesia, the Philippines, & Thailand
* Bencab's Rock Sessions at the Art Center, SM Megamall
* Creates a stir when he exhibits a large portrait of Flor Contemplation at the 10th Asian International Art Exhibition, National Museum Art Gallery, Singapore (now in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Manila)
* 1996 Exhibit of his illustrations for the book El Indio Bravo: The Story of Jose Rizal, a biography of the national hero written by his grand-niece Asuncion Lopez-Rizal Bantug, in celebration of the centennial of Rizal's death at The Luz Gallery
* Envisages & helps set-up Tam-awan Village in Baguio for the preservation of Cordillera culture & traditions
* 1997 Chosen by the ASEAN Business Forum to receive the ASEAN Achievement Award for Visual & Performing Arts at the 5th ASEAN Achievement Awards in Jakarta - a recognition and tribute given to outstanding ASEAN individuals in their respective fields of endeavor
* Receives the Outstanding Citizen of Baguio Award for Arts from the Mayor of Baguio, his adoptive city, on its 88th Foundation Day
* Exhibit of art using photocopies in Images Of The Cordillera at the Metropolitan Museum of Manila
* 1998 Larawan III: The Filipina ca. 1898 at The Luz Gallery in honor of the Philippine Centennial
* 2000 A 1983 oil painting, Waiting For The Monsoon, is included for the first time at the Christie's Singapore auction of Southeast Asian Paintings
* 2002 Homage to Sabel at The Luz Gallery on his 60th birthday
* 2005 Invited by the Singapore Tyler Print Institute to join their Visiting Artists Programme as artist-in residence for one month working on large-scale prints & paper pulp painting.

The Filipino National Artist in Visual Arts

Fernando Amorsolo was born on May 30, 1892 in Paco, when Manila was still under Spanish sovereignty, to Pedro Amorsolo, a bookkeeper, and Bonifacia Cueto. Amorsolo spent his childhood in Daet, Camarines Norte, where he studied in a public school and was tutored at home in Spanish reading and writing. After his father’s death, Amorsolo and his family moved to Manila to live with Don Fabian de la Rosa, his mother's cousin and a Philippine painter. At the age of 13, Amorsolo became an apprentice to De la Rosa, who would eventually become the advocate and guide to Amorsolo's painting career. During this time, Amorsolo's mother embroidered to earn money, while Amorsolo helped by selling watercolor postcards to a local bookstore for 10 centavos each. Amorsolo's brother, Pablo, was also a painter.
Amorsolo's first success as a young painter came in 1908, when his painting Leyendo el periódico took second place at the Bazar Escolta, a contest organized by the Asociacion Internacional de Artistas.Between 1909 and 1914, Amorsolo enrolled at the Art School of the Liceo de Manila, where he earned honors for his paintings and drawings.
After graduating from the Liceo, he entered the University of the Philippines' School of Fine Arts, where De la Rosa worked at the time. During college, Fernando Amorsolo's primary influences were the Spanish court painter Diego Velazquez, John Singer Sargent, Anders Zorn, Claude Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, but mostly his contemporary Spanish masters Joaquín Sorolla Bastida and Ignacio Zuloaga. Amorsolo's most notable work as a student at the Liceo was his painting of a young man and a young woman in a garden, which won him the first prize in the art school exhibition during his graduation year. To make money during school, Amorsolo joined competitions and did illustrations for various Philippine publications, including Severino Reyes’ first novel in Tagalog, Parusa ng Diyos (God’s Punishment), and Iñigo Ed. Regalado's Madaling Araw (Dawn). He also illustrated for the religious Pasion books. Amorsolo graduated with medals from the University of the Philippines.

Amorsolo poster promoting liberty bonds, 1917
After graduating from the University of the Philippines, Amorsolo worked as a draftsman for the Bureau of Public Works, as a chief artist at the Pacific Commercial Company, and as a part-time instructor at the University of the Philippines (where he would work for 38 years). After three years as an instructor and commercial artist, Amorsolo was given a grant to study at the Academia de San Fernando in Madrid, Spain by Filipino businessman Enrique Zobel de Ayala. During his seven months in Spain, Amorsolo sketched at museums and along the streets of Madrid, experimenting with the use of light and color. Through De Ayala’s grant, Amorsolo was also able to visit New York, where he encountered postwar impressionism and cubism, which would be major influences on his work.
Amorsolo set up his own studio upon his return to Manila and painted prodigiously during the 1920s and the 1930s. His Rice Planting (1922), which appeared on posters and tourist brochures, became one of the most popular images of the Commonwealth era Beginning in the 1930s, Amorsolo's work was exhibited widely both in the Philippines and abroad. His optimistic, pastoral images set the tone for Philippine painting before World War II. Except for his darker World War II-era paintings, Amorsolo painted quiet and peaceful scenes throughout his career.
Amorsolo was sought after by influential Filipinos including Luis Araneta, Antonio Araneta and Jorge Vargas. Amorsolo also became the favorite Philippine artist of United States officials and visitors in the Philippines. Due to his popularity, Amorsolo had to resort to photographing his works and pasted and mounted them in an album. Prospective patrons could then choose from this catalogue of his works. Amorsolo did not create exact replicas of his trademark themes; he recreated the paintings by varying some elements.
His works later appeared on the cover and pages of children's textbooks, in novels, in commercial designs, in cartoons and illustrations for the Philippine publications such The Independent, Philippine Magazine, Telembang, El Renacimiento Filipino, and Excelsior. He was the director of the University of the Philippine’s College of Fine Arts from 1938 to 1952.

A memorial to Amorsolo near his grave in Marikina City
During the 1950s until his death in 1972, Amorsolo averaged to finishing 10 paintings a month. However, during his later years, diabetes, cataractarthritis, headaches, dizziness and the death of two sons affected the execution of his works. Amorsolo underwent a cataract operation when he was 70 years old, a surgery that did not impede him from drawing and painting.Two months after being confined at the St. Luke’s Hospital in Manila, Amorsolo died of heart failure on April 24, 1972 at the age of 79.
Four days after his death, Amorsolo was conferred as the First Philippine National Artist in Painting at the Cultural Center of the Philippines by Ferdinand E. Marcos.


During his lifetime, Amorsolo was married twice and had 14 children. In 1916, he married Salud Jorge, with whom he had six children.[10] After Jorge’s death in 1931, Amorsolo married Maria del Carmen Zaragoza, with whom he had eight more children. Among her daughters are Sylvia Amorsolo Lazo and Luz Amorsolo.Five of Amorsolo’s children became painters themselves. Amorsolo was a close friend to the Philippine sculptor Guillermo Tolentino, the creator of the Caloocan City monument for Philippine hero Andres Bonifacio.

The Filipino National Artist in Visual Arts

Napoleon Abueva, nicknamed Billy, was born on January 26, 1930 in Tagbilaran, Bohol to Teodoro Abueva, a Bohol congressman and Purificacion (Nena) Veloso, president of the Women’s Auxiliary Service. His father was a friend and contemporary of former Philippine President Manuel Roxas and Ambassador Narciso Ramos. He was a member of the Provincial Board, and later became the Provincial Governor of Bohol. He ended his career as a Congressman in 1934. Both of Abueva's parents died serving their country.
Abueva has six other brothers and sisters: Teodoro (Teddy), Jr., now based in New York, USA; Purificacion (Neny -deceased), married to Atty. Ramon Binamira (dec.) of Tagbilaran City; Jose Abueva (Pepe) former president of the University of the Philippines; Amelia Martinez (Inday), now living in Chicago Teresita (Ching)Floro, now living in Sydney, Australia; and Antonio (Tony), a landscape artist who met a tragic fate aboard Princess of the Orient; his body has not been found.
In 1943, at the height of the Second World War, Napoleon Abueva became an unwilling victim of the atrocities of the Japanese. With his father, a leader in the underground movement, and his mother in the women's Auxiliary group, the family was hunted. His parents were captured, tortured, and killed in Valencia. Billy was then only 14 years old, but this did not spare him from the brutality of the invaders. He accompanied his grandmother to Ilaya, Duero where they were captured by some Japanese soldiers. His grandmother was later freed, but he was hog-tied, brought to Guindulman, and tortured for more than a week. He lost his front teeth, and the blue-black marks on his wrists and ankles took weeks to heal. [1]
As a young boy, Billy studied at the Tagbilaran Elementary School, and later at University of Southern Philippines, Holy Name College (now Holy Name University), and Rafael Palma College (now the University of Bohol) before making it as a sculptor.
A home-grown talent, he was given a break in 1951 when he won the Pura Villanueva-Kalaw Scholarship. He then took up a Bachelor's degree in Fine Arts at the University of the Philippines where he graduated in 1953. This was followed by a Fulbright-Smith Mundt Scholarship in 1954-55, after which he got a foreign Students Scholarship at the University of Kansas (1955-56). At the same time, he won another scholarship at the Instituto de Allende in Mexico City which he did not avail due to conflict in schedule. It was also in 1955 that he finished his Masters in Fine Arts at the Cranbook Academy of Arts, U.S. In 1956, he attended Harvard University for another scholarship grant.
At U.P, one of his mentors was Guillermo Tolentino, also a national artist, who created the oblation at the university entrance .
Abueva has helped shape the local sculpture scene in the Philippines. Being adept in both academic representational style and modern abstract, he has utilized almost all kinds of materials from hard wood (molave, acacia, langka wood, ipil, kamagong, palm wood and bamboo) to adobe, metal, stainless steel, cement, marble, bronze, iron, alabaster, coral and brass.
In 1976, he was proclaimed as National Artist of the Philippines for Visual Arts by then President Ferdinand Marcos. He was the youngest recipient of the title at age 46.
Some of his major works include Kaganapan (1953), Kiss of Judas (1955), Thirty Pieces of Silver , The Transfiguration, Eternal Gardens Memorial Park (1979), UP Gateway (1967), Nine Muses (1994), UP Faculty Center, Sunburst (1994)-Peninsula Manila Hotel, the bronze figure of Teodoro M. Kalaw in front of National Library, and murals in marble at the National Heroes Shrine, Mt. Samat, Bataan. One masterpiece he dedicates to the Boholanos is the Sandugo or Blood Compact shrine in Bohol, Tagbilaran City, a landmark at the site of the first international treaty of friendship between Spaniards and Filipinos. This is now a tourist attraction in Bohol province. This shrine is an expression of Abueva's awareness of his roots, and a manifestation of his artistic talents.
Abueva also performed the death mask procedure of opposition leader Ninoy Aquino in 1983, as well as that of Fernando Poe, Jr. in 2004. Both masks are now displayed at the Center for Kapampangan Studies, Hacienda Luisita, Tarlac. Incidentally, he also made a death mask of Cardinal Sin
He is married to Cherry Abueva, a psychiatrist, and has three children, Amihan,Mulawin, and Duero. At present, he currently teaches at the Industrial Design department of the De La Salle-College of Saint Benilde School of Design and Arts

The massacre of the innocents is a figurative painting and the style of the painting is a baroque, the subject tell about emotion because its see the grief, violence and also the desperate love or a cruelty. also, the painting is a horizontal image and the painter use a oil painting to paint. the surface material was use in this painting is a canvas board.the composition in this painting is the ideas and feelings of the painter,the elements is lead into picture and the pattern of movement of the painting is a linear pattern and