Penman for Sunday, June 10, 2024

THE WORK of two outstanding Filipino artists drew my attention last month, in events that could be considered retrospectives of remarkable if somewhat divergent careers. 

The first was the exhibition “Looking Back” mounted by Fernando Modesto at the Galerie Hans Brumann in Makati, running until June 30, which gathers some of the painter’s best work over the past five decades, many of them from the private collection of the longtime Manila resident Brumann himself. That Brumann—now 83, and also a renowned artist and jeweler—was letting go of these pieces struck me much less as a disposal of worthy objects than a bequeathal, an opportunity to share the best of Modesto with other collectors. Laid low by a stroke some years ago, “Mode” as his friends know him remains mentally as sprightly and mischievous as ever; and he has striven and managed to produce new work despite his condition, taking off from the Mode we knew.

That Mode was irrepressibly bright, witty, and playful. In contrast to the somber and even dismal realism of many of his contemporaries from the 1970s onwards, Mode made light of things, opening up a world of freedom and delight in an oppressive universe. 

The playfulness, at one point, was literal. In 2018, writing in Frieze magazine, Cristina Sanchez-Kozyreva reported on the Ateneo Art Gallery’s recreation of an early Modesto installation from 1974 titled Dyolens(Marbles) that involved laying out thousands of marbles on the floor for visitors to kick around. That was about the time I first met him during my days as a printmaker in Ermita; Mode had already gained fame—or notoriety if you will—for his depictions of pendant penises, which even then were clearly meant not to offend but to make one smile.

The Brumann exhibit documents Mode’s progression from tongue-in-cheek wit to transcendent wisdom, opening a door into a world we can only hope to inhabit, where angels reach for a shimmering sun (or are they playing volleyball?) in an iridescent haze, or float face-up in a cosmic pool. His most recent work such as King of the Islands II (2021) retains that rare equanimity in the cool blue gaze of its subject.

If Fernando Modesto is a master of the modern, the second painter who caught my eye reminded me of how much richness remains to be discovered in our artistic past. May 24 saw the launching of Matayog na Puno: The Life and Art of Hugo C. Yonzon, Jr. (published by Onyx Owl, 248 pages), on the centennial birthdate of Yonzon. Authored by Hugo’s son Boboy and the late Neal Cruz, the book chronicles the life and work of a man for whom art was both a passion and a living. Hugo’s career harkened back to a time when the line between fine and commercial art was blurry and perhaps not all that important, for as long as the artist gave the work his all. 

Yonzon had to leave school early to take a job—just the first of one or many—and he would go on to become much more of a journeyman, one viscerally engaged in the trade, than an aesthete or academic. “Yonzon was always invited to the various sessions held by the Saturday Group and other weekday groups that tried to establish their name and weight in the art scene,” says the book. “But he never stayed long nor drew enough on-the-spot sketches; although he had an eye for women, nude sketching did not interest him. He would rather banter and drink a cup of coffee, then return promptly to his favorite themes in his perpetually makeshift studio.”

He was friends with some of the best artists and illustrators of his time, including Mauro “Malang” Santos and Larry Alcala. Having worked as an illustrator and as an art director for an advertising agency, Hugo wielded an extremely versatile brush, adjusting his style and treatment to the client’s needs. It got to the point that visitors to his one-man show became confused, seeing so many different styles on display, but that range was a great part of the reason for Hugo’s popularity. 

But he kept returning to his favorite themes—the pastoral, the folk, the heroic, the visual representation of what he imagined Filipinos at their best and most essential to be. This appealed to the sensibilities of patrons such as First Lady Imelda Marcos, who generously supported Yonzon. Hugo was tireless in his painting and gave his friends huge discounts to the point that his wife Betty felt compelled to manage his financial affairs.

His lifestyle was appropriately flamboyant. “Dad was a loud but chic dresser,” recalls his eldest daughter Minnie. “When psychedelic colors and prints were in vogue, his long-sleeved shirts were in paisleys and reds and greens. Why, he even painted the air scoop of our brand-new Beetle in paisley!”

The life depicted in the book is fascinating, full of struggle and drama, but ultimately it is the art that imprints itself in our consciousness—one full of vigor, color, inventiveness, and variety, celebratory in every way of the near-mythic Filipino. The writer and art critic Lisa Nakpil would say that Yonzon, who died in 1994, was the “underrated master of heroic Filipino iconography,” and this book clearly shows us why.