| Alice V. Guillermo | |
| Birth Date: | 6 January 1938 |
| Birth Place: | Manila, Philippines |
| Death Place: | Quezon City, Philippines |
| Occupation: | Art critic and historian, progressive scholar |
| Language: | Filipino, English, French |
| Spouse: | Gelacio Y. Guillermo Jr. |
Alice V. Guillermo (6 January 1938 – 29 July 2018) was a Filipino art historian, critic, academic, and author.[1] [2]
Guillermo was born in Manila on January 6, 1938. She received a BA in Education degree (magna cum laude) in 1957 from the College of Holy Ghost. As a scholar of the French government in art history and literature at the University of Aix-Marseille in Aix-en-Provence, she completed the Certificat d’Études Littéraires Générales, the Certificat de Séminaire d’Études Supérieures (“avec la mention assez bien”) with a study of the French nouveau roman, “La Modification par Michel Butor: Thèmes et Structures”, and the Diplôme de Langue et Lettres Françaises, also with Honours, in 1967. She received her PhD in Philippine Studies from the University of the Philippines Diliman.[3]
She is best known for her extensive body of art criticism and academic texts on the subject of Philippine art, which academics credit for having significantly informed the writing of both art history and art theory in Southeast Asia.[4]
A board member of the Concerned Artists of the Philippines[5] and a member of the Cultural Research Association of the Philippines, she taught at and chaired the Art Studies department of the College of Arts and Literature at the University of the Philippines Diliman. Among her most influential books are Social Realism in the Philippines (1987), Images of Change (1988), The Covert Presence and Other Essays on Politics and Culture (1989), Protest/Revolutionary Art in the Philippines, 1970–1990 (2001), and Image to Meaning: Essays on Philippine Art (2001).[6] [7] In a tribute to her, Jose Maria Sison wrote, "She and her works will live on both as significant contributions to the cumulative revolutionary tradition of art and literature and as inspirational guide to the revolutionary artists and creative writers of this and further generations."[8]
In 2020, the Philippine Contemporary Art Network published Frisson: The Collected Criticism of Alice Guillermo, a posthumous anthology of Guillermo's critical essays.[9] The Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP), recognized her contributions by granting her its highest award posthumously, the Gawad CCP Para sa Sining in 2020.[10]
She was married to the revolutionary poet and critic Gelacio Guillermo and had two children, Sofia Guillermo and Ramon Guillermo.