Lot description
City Vendor signed and dated 1.6.72 (upper left) oil on canvas 33 3/4" x 19 3/4" (86 cm x 51 cm) Accompanied by a certificate issued by West Gallery confirming the authenticity of this lot PROVENANCE Private Collection, Toronto Mauro Malang Santos’ City Vendor depicts a lively convergence of different urban elements: colorful houses, a church, pocket parks packed with lush trees and greenery, winding bodies of water, and the vibrant populace. These different elements seamlessly blend with one another, effectively rendering a tapestry of a tightly knit community. This emphasizes and celebrates Malang’s Filipino sensibility—his respect and his admiration for the Filipinos’ natural affinity for a culture of solidarity and collectivism. The vertical view of this landscape underscores not only the vibrancy and grandeur of a bustling cityscape but also its seemingly vast and endless stretch of the horizon, endowing the piece with a distinct pictorial space and a compelling illusion of depth. The viewer’s attention then shifts to the image of a woman in the bottom center. Malang’s women figures, with their billowing sleeves reminiscent of the baro’t saya, slick hair, elongated necks, and enlarged and lengthened physiques, are imbued with lightheartedness and playfulness, showing the artist’s cheery disposition and positive perspective on life, and harks back to his former profession as a cartoonist. Before they appeared as the sole, central figures in many of his paintings, Malang first situated the women within the environs of a small community or a sprawling urban landscape, as exemplified by this 1972 piece. Amid the picture of a dense city, Malang’s emphasis on the woman is an implication of her paramount role in societal development. (A.M.)
