La Luz of Philippine art
by Jack Teotico

In 1997, Arturo Rogero Luz was named the seventh National Artist for Visual Arts (Painting). Before Luz, the first painter to receive the National Artist award was Fernando Amorsolo (1972), Victorio Edades (1976), Vicente Manansala (1981), Cesar Legaspi (1990) and H.R. Ocampo (1991). In the Philippines, the National Artist award is one of the most prestigious accolades that is bestowed on luminaries of the arts and culture. The honor is comparable to a knighthood in a European country, but nonetheless only one of the endless recognitions conferred on the highly talented and much respected Luz.

Art start

Art did not come early to the youngest child of Valeriano Luz and Rosario Dimayuga. If there was any art in the Valeriano Luz household, it came rather late to influence the young Arturo.

Luz’s father was a quiet and withdrawn government official who worked with the Bureau of Commerce (now the Department of Trade and Industry). His mother was a late bloomer of sorts as an artist for it was only at the senior age of 70 when she found an interest in interior design. Nevertheless, she moved on to become one of the top interior designers in the country and was even awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award for Interior Design.

Luz himself hardly expressed any interest in art. Although a diligent student at San Beda, he mostly excelled in swimming. Apparently, art just crept up on the boy when during the Japanese occupation, on an idyllic afternoon, he suddenly grabbed a pencil sketched a portrait of his mother. As the story goes, he found it very fulfilling that then and there he decided he was going to be an artist.

Luz the pupil

Unlike most families during the immediate post-American colonial period where parents forbade their children to become full time artists because it was not a lucrative career, Valerio and Rosario proved supportive to their son. He was allowed to take art lessons from Pablo, the brother of the noted artist and dean of the UP School of Fine Arts, Fernando Amorsolo. The lessons were held at Fernando’s house. But because Pablo was always late for the art lessons, Fernando would take it upon himself to entertain Luz and show him his latest sketches and paintings, as well as discuss art with the pupil. From Pablo Amorsolo, Luz learned on-the-spot painting.

Eventually, Luz studied Fine Arts at the University of Santo Tomas with professors such as Galo Ocampo, Diosdado Lorenzo and Ricarte Puruganan.

In 1947, his father was appointed commercial attaché in San Francisco so together with the fanily, Luz made the monthlong voyage to the United States by boat. In California, he enrolled at the California College of Arts and Crafts, which was very competitive institution that demanded hard work from its students. A three-and-a-half-year course, Luz only had to pay tuition for the first semester. He was awarded an art scholarship for the rest of his schooling.

His subsequent education was at the art school at the Brooklyn Museum and then at the Academie de la Grande Chaumiere in Paris, France. In Paris, he found drawing incessantly, his ketchbook filled with figures, cityscapes, landmark buildings, simply anything his eye fancied. These drawings what comprised his first one-man show at the Raymond Duncan Gallery. He then exhibited his watercolor works (done during his stay in California) at the Manila Hotel, which was followed by an exhibit at the Philippine Art Gallery (PAG) where he met six of the Neorealists (Romeo Tabuena, HR Ocampo, Vicente Manansala, Victor Oteyza, Ramon Estella and Cesar Legaspi) who were at the forefront of the modern art movement in Manila then. He also started a close friendship with Fernando Zobel and subsequently met the other important contemporary artists of that era—Nena Saguil, Anita Magsaysay-Ho, Jose Joya, Manuel Rodriguez Sr., Lee Aguinaldo and David Cortez Medalla among others.

Luz the awardee

In 1951, Luz won the first prize in the Annual Art Competition of the Art Association of the Philippines for his work “Bagong Taon.” The following year also won him a first prize in AAP’s genre category for his piece Hopscotch Marbles.

In 1978, he received the Order of Arts and Letters with the rank Chevalier from the Republic of France. This was later upgraded to the rank of Officiel in 1988. In 1989, perhaps as a porecursor to his National Artist award, Luz received the Gawad CCP para sa Sining award from the Cultural Center of the Philippines.

Luz’s milestone

On November 20, Arturo Luz turns 80. It is in celebration of this milestone that the country’s top cultural institutions have calendared no less than eight events in the last quarter of 2006 as tribute to this great artist. These include an exhibit on his life at the National Commission on Art and Culture; an exhibit of his work in the context of Philippine abstract art at the National Museum; an exhibit on how he has influenced design at the Design Center of the Philippines; a show featuring performances by artists, dancers and musicians inspired by his works; an exhibit of his prints at the CCP Main Gallery; an exhibit of his paintings at the Metropolitan Museum and at the Ateneo Art gallery; and an exhibit at the Ayala Museum’s multipurpose area on how Luz’s work and the architecture of National Artist for Architecture Leandro Locsin related to one another.

It is in the light of paying tribute to this great artist and distinguished gentleman on his forthcoming birthday that Galerie Joaquin assembled some 36 paintings done by Luz over the past decade on the theme “Temples, Performers and Cities of the Past.” The exhibit opens on July 12 at Galerie Joaquin Main in San Juan, Metro Manila. The show runs until July 26, 2006. (Galerie Joaquin is located at P. Guevarra St., Addition Hills, San Juan. Tel: 723-9253 or 723-9418, or visit www.galeriejoaquin.com)

Painting performers

In the book Arturo Luz by noted art critic and biographer Cid Reyes, Luz recalls having started painting cyclists sometime in the early 1950s. He had seen someone riding a bicycle with a man seated in front at the handlebar with a passenger behind him. He found this scene “so Filipino” that he made a painting out of it. He added a tooting horn to one of the figures and called it Bagong Taon. He has been painting cyclists ever since.