MANILA, Philippines — Pieces by Anita Magsaysay-Ho and Nena Saguil are on display together for the first time at an exhibit by the Metropolitan Museum of Manila's The M.
The two women are considered trailblazers for modern art in the Philippines and have intersected several times in their lives.
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Both artists born in 1914 were classmates in the University of the Philippines' Fine Arts program under the directorship of Fabian de la Rosa, graduating in 1933 to develop their own artistic expressions.
They also pursued studies abroad: Magsaysay-Ho studied in New York's Art Students League and Michigan's Cranbook Academy, while Saguil studied in the Ecole d’Art Américaines at the Château de Fontainbleu and the Académie de la Grande Chaumière, both in Paris.
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The exhibit "Material Inspirations" curated by Patrick Flores sees the two women come together once more through pieces displaying their distinct crafts: egg tempera for Magsaysay-Ho, and pen-and-ink for Saguil.
"Anita and Nena were intuitively committed to their personas as women and artists, turning to exemplars in European art such as Brueghel and Kandinsky and devoting their time to the trance-like completion of form with finesse, conscientiousness, and vitality," goes the exhibit's statement.
"They were grounded in the fields and atmospheres of memory and fantasy wherever their fascinations took them, whether quaint or abstract, in a marketplace of teeming smoked fish in Manila or in an ascetic attic in the heady cosmopolis of Paris."
"Material Inspirations" runs at The M in Bonifacio Global City, Taguig City until December 8. Weekday viewings (except Mondays and holidays) are from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m., opening an hour earlier on weekends.
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