| Vicente Manansala | |
| Birth Name: | Vicente Silva Manansala |
| Birth Date: | 22 January 1910 |
| Birth Place: | Macabebe, Pampanga, Philippine Islands |
| Death Place: | Manila, Philippines |
| Nationality: | Filipino |
| Field: | painter and illustrator |
| Resting Place: | Loyola Memorial Park, Marikina |
| Movement: | Cubism |
Vicente Silva Manansala (January 22, 1910 – August 22, 1981) was a Filipino cubist painter and illustrator.[1] One of the first Abstractionists on the Philippine art scene Vicente Manansala is also credited with bridging the gap between the city and the suburbs, between the rural and cosmopolitan ways of life. His paintings depict a nation in transition, an allusion to the new culture brought by the Americans. Manansala together with Fabian de la Rosa are among the best-selling Philippine artists in the West.
He was a member of the prominent Cruz, Manansala, Lopez family clan. He is considered one of the 13 Moderns, a group of modernists associated with Victorio Edades.[2]
Manansala was born on January 22, 1910, in San Roque, Macabebe, Pampanga.[3] From 1926 to 1930, he studied at the U.P. School of Fine Arts. In 1949, Manansala received a six-month grant by UNESCO to study at the École des Beaux-Arts in Banff and Montreal, Quebec, Canada. In 1950, he received a nine-month scholarship to study at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris by the French government.[1] He also trained at the Otis School of Drawing.[4]
Manansala's paintings are the best and were celebrated as the best of the barrio and the city together. His Madonna of the Slums is a portrayal of a mother and child from the countryside who became urban shanty residents once in the city. In his Jeepneys, Manansala combined the elements of provincial folk culture with the congestion issues of the city.[1]
Manansala developed transparent cubism, wherein the "delicate tones, shapes, and patterns of figure and environment are masterfully superimposed". A fine example of Manansala using this "transparent and translucent" technique is his composition, kalabaw (Carabao).[1]
Vicente Manansala, a National Artist of the Philippines in Visual Arts, was a direct influence to his fellow Filipino neo-realists: Malang, Angelito Antonio, Norma Belleza and Manuel Baldemor.[1] The Honolulu Museum of Art, the Lopez Memorial Museum (Manila), the Philippine Center (New York City), the Singapore Art Museum and Holy Angel University[3] (Angeles City, Philippines) are among the public collections holding work by Vicente Manansala. Holy Angel University recently opened a section of its museum called The Vicente Manansala Collection, holding most of the estate left by the artist.
Manansala died on August 22, 1981, in Manila, Philippines, due to lung cancer.