Lot description
Harvesters dated 1957 oil on canvas 24” x 30” (61 cm x 76 cm) PROVENANCE: A gift from Regina Dee, from the collection of her husband Dee K. Chiong to Leticia B. Lucas. EXHIBITED: Philippine Art Gallery, Manila,6th Anniversary Exhibition, August 24, 1957. Philippine Art Gallery, Manila, Solo exhibition, Anita Magsaysay-Ho, November 30 - December 10, 1957. LITERATURE: “A New Group of Paintings by Anita Magsaysay-Ho.” This Week, September 29, 1957. Black-and-white illustration on page 32. Philippine Art Gallery. 7 Years of the Philippine Art Gallery: 1951 - 1957. Manila: Philippine Art Gallery, 1958. Listed as “Harvesters.” and owned by Dee K, Chiong, as No. 2059, on page Ap-37. WRITE UPFor this work, Anita Magsaysay-Ho plumbed the depths of her happiest childhood memories. The centerpiece was the work Harvesters. It would actually appear twice on the walls of the Philippine Art Gallery: First as the Harvesters as part of the 6th anniversary show of the PAG on August 24, 1957; and then again for Magsaysay-Ho’s solo exhibit which opened on November 30, 1957. The book 7 Years of the Philippine Art Gallery : (1951 -1957) produced by the PAG in 1958 would list Dee Kee Chiong as the owner of the Harvesters. It would be in his collection when he passed and his wife, the beauteous Regina Dee, would give it as a gift to his devoted secretary Leticia B. Lucas a few years later. Magsaysay-Ho would say that she would be exhorted by her teachers at the Art Academy to paint what she knew, but not the literal forms or shapes of Filipino people but the spirit that inhabited them. This, is what would make her paintings not only uniquely Philippine but also uniquely her own. Harvesters, the work at hand, takes place in the mountains of Zambales, in the lush green fields between San Antonio and San Marcelino, the hometown of Ambrosio Magsaysay and his mother and aunts. One of them was married to Don Ambrosio’s half-brother, Juan Rodriguez and he possessed an even vaster tract of land called Dalanawan, which rolled over several small hills at the foot of Mt. Pinatubo. This was the kingdom of the Aetas and Anita’s Tio Juanito was named Governor of the area. It is easy to imagine that this painting was set in Dalanawan: Anita would remember climbing the hills to look down “on the lovely scenery” below. It is a gold and pink-streaked dawn of an eternal summer. A grove of banana trees are bursting with their fruit, so many and so lush that they keep an entire family busy gathering the bounty into sacks. A man trundles one bundle while a woman, her son and daughter, are busy with more of this cornucopia. (Lisa Guerrero Nakpil)