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Lot Essay
These three beautiful works from the personal collection of Caroline Kennedy give a rare glimpse into the heart of an intimate life journey, which shaped one man's influences and the story of his art. Each picture is a singular creation, giving insight to the artist known as Bencab, spanning his days in Bambang and London, and most of all, inspired by Caroline Kennedy, a young British writer who arrived in Manila in 1968 and later became the wife and companion of the artist.
"While Bencab has captured with extreme verisimilitude the likeness of the figures in the photographs, the paintings are not literal transcriptions of the original photographs. Indeed, to compare the photographs with the resulting paintings is to admire the extent of skill and artistry of the artist. Out of the flat tonality of the black-and-white photograph, Bencab limned a work that is not only vividly lifelike, but also alert to the liveliness of painterly brushwork and elegant linearity. In this regard, Bencab differs from other artists who use photography not as a point of departure for painting but as a statement on the nature of the two mediums, a photograph recreated through the art of painting, but still masquerading as a photograph."
Larawan Series
The Oriental Fan (Larawan Series) (Lot 1171) is an elegantly lyrical masterpiece from Bencab's celebrated Larawan series. Even before the creation of Larawan, Bencab was already widely lauded for his skill in figurative painting, refined draughtsmanship, and themes of the Filipino diaspora. However it was from the birth of Larawan in 1972, and its first exhibition at Luz Gallery, that Bencab truly burst into the public imagination as the nation's artist, typifying the life and soul of Filipino history and social consciousness. Larawan was a triumph of artistic skill paired with a renaissance of thematic vision. Based on poignant images culled from vintage colonial photographs, the series, which stretched for over two decades, enacts the brilliancy, pathos, and elaborate hierarchy of the Philippines' rich chronicles.
In fact the inspiration for Larawan was conceived during Bencab's early days in London with Caroline. Discovering a trove of Filipiniana material - books, postcards, old prints, photographs, and other relics of a colonial past - in the antiquarian stalls of Chelsea market, a favourite haunt of the young couple, Bencab began to explore how these evocative images could be incorporated into his art. As a foreigner living within Britain of the late 1960s and 70s; a society which could be alternately austere and free-wheeling, even schizophrenically so; it is unsurprising Bencab felt a stirring connection to these relics of his native history, now relegated to nearly forgotten memorabilia in another ex-colonial country. Bencab also had the advantage of being objectively distant from his native land while spiritually free to explore the impulses resonating from deep within his soul. This led to a renewal of his Filipino identity within an unexpected location far from home. Through this jointure of parallel and juxtaposing images, Larawan emerged - a critique of social history, a commentary on the Filipino condition.
Similar to his Sabel works, Bencab retains a strong thematic interest in the undulating materiality of cloth and human attire. The outfits worn by his Larawan sitters are always of particular interest, with the folds and pat terns carefully ascribed. As Bencab investigates the traditional Filipiniana attire and attitudes of the colonial era, he lifts a veil to a time past: the arrival of Hispanic and Chinese migrants, the first indigenous plantation owners, richly garbed mestizas, starkly contrasted against other marginalised figures: the improverished, the downtrodden, the domestics. Through reforming colonial images and paying attention to the narrative quality of personal adornments and fabrics, Bencab immortalises these artefacts in a fixity of societal discourse rather than as mere documentary record-keeping; casting an introspective analysis on the colonial imposition and the disparity of social class, even as he illustrates the innate dignity of the country's founding men and women.
The Oriental Fan
Within The Oriental Fan, a young mestizo girl, perhaps a rich plantation owner's daughter, is lying in a hammock during her afternoon siesta hour in the hacienda. She is exceedingly beautiful, as told through her delicate features and long fall of dark hair cascading through the woven plaits of her hammock. However it is her direct gaze through finely browed eyes, and her winsome smile, which captures her innate sensuality and a deep sense of her historicity. With his strong humanistic streak and sensitivity to a finely tuned expression, we understand what must have captivated Bencab from the photographic template which he discovered in a book on Filipino history. The connection of her powerful gaze with that of the contemporary viewer is immediate and electrifying. Equally, if not more, important is the indio maidservant standing demurely in the background. Her downcast lids and devotion to the act of fanning her mistress demonstrates her station in life, as one of the silent majority who built Filipino society through long years of faithful servitude.
The quintessentially Spanish habit to cool away the heat of the afternoon is carried out with an oriental fan, a relic of Chinese migranthood which is a key strand within the multiracial heritage of the Philippines. The paper collage fan within this work, and the smaller fan trimmed from Chinese parchment, create an interesting dimension to its narrative, as though the actual colonial artefact itself is tangibly attached to the picture. Cid Reyes comments that throughout the Larawan works, Bencab has used the photorealist technique as a trompe l'oeil study. In this work however, the additional use of collaged elements elevates it beyond the basic function of optical textuality and deception. The act of affixing something physically extraneous to the visual artwork transforms the fragmented souvenir into a repository of nationalistic significance. Through this act of superimposition, The Oriental Fan evolves from a nostalgic entity into a resonant historical document in its own right; an archival showcase. The true mastery of Bencab's Larawan series comes from taking ownership of one's historical images and data, repossessing them, and thereby acquisitioning one's own cultural identity.
Lastly there is the third figure to consider, a woman whose body curves diagonally across the picture plane, her eyes closed, a petite earring dangling underneath her elegant cap of swept-back hair, her face in profile partially shaded by the same fan. The meticulous drapery reflects Bencab's affinity for textured folds of cloth, seen through the large fan-like sleeves of her traditional sinamay blouse. Unlike the central female figure, this woman with her small, rosebud mouth and less angular features could very well be a Chinese migrant, or a mestizo of Chinese descent. Her eyes closed, she appears to be musing over faded dreams of antiquity, even as her folding fan is being revived to decorate this work. Bencab illustrates prototypes of female migrants - the plantation owner's daughter, her maidservant, the Chinese woman and her folding fan. Apart from being a composition of outstanding aesthetic beauty, The Oriental Fan is a testament to the different sorts of women who inspired and shaped Filipino history.
The Family and Portrait of Caroline
The Family (Image of Sarejevo) (Lot 1172) was painted in 1994 for Caroline Kennedy who was working in Bosnia and Croatia during the Balkan War. Influenced by news footage of refugee families and Caroline's first-hand account of the political turmoil, the work is an empathic portrait of a family riven by the fatigues of war. Yet at the same time, it is also an archetypal representation of any peasant family with a swaddled infant, strong of limb and spirit, broken but not bowed in spite of catastrophic challenges. Through Bencab's social filter and penchant for depicting diasporic people, they could indeed be Filipino or any other nationality with an enduring connection to the land. Portrait of Caroline (The Artist's Wife) (Lot 1173) was a birthday gift for Caroline Kennedy in 1972, the same year that Bencab first developed the Larawan series. It exemplifies the photorealist aesthetic used within the Larawan pictures, complete with faded sepia tints, formal body posture and cleanly defined physiological lines. A comparable example is the iconic early Larawan work A Typical Mestiza, 1972. The rendition of the artist's wife as a virginal, goddess-like muse, with her tumbling locks and faraway expression, evokes a remote and almost pristine loveliness. The visage might be that of Caroline as he knew her best, but the affectionate perception behind the brush was wholly the artist's.
"While Bencab has captured with extreme verisimilitude the likeness of the figures in the photographs, the paintings are not literal transcriptions of the original photographs. Indeed, to compare the photographs with the resulting paintings is to admire the extent of skill and artistry of the artist. Out of the flat tonality of the black-and-white photograph, Bencab limned a work that is not only vividly lifelike, but also alert to the liveliness of painterly brushwork and elegant linearity. In this regard, Bencab differs from other artists who use photography not as a point of departure for painting but as a statement on the nature of the two mediums, a photograph recreated through the art of painting, but still masquerading as a photograph."
Larawan Series
The Oriental Fan (Larawan Series) (Lot 1171) is an elegantly lyrical masterpiece from Bencab's celebrated Larawan series. Even before the creation of Larawan, Bencab was already widely lauded for his skill in figurative painting, refined draughtsmanship, and themes of the Filipino diaspora. However it was from the birth of Larawan in 1972, and its first exhibition at Luz Gallery, that Bencab truly burst into the public imagination as the nation's artist, typifying the life and soul of Filipino history and social consciousness. Larawan was a triumph of artistic skill paired with a renaissance of thematic vision. Based on poignant images culled from vintage colonial photographs, the series, which stretched for over two decades, enacts the brilliancy, pathos, and elaborate hierarchy of the Philippines' rich chronicles.
In fact the inspiration for Larawan was conceived during Bencab's early days in London with Caroline. Discovering a trove of Filipiniana material - books, postcards, old prints, photographs, and other relics of a colonial past - in the antiquarian stalls of Chelsea market, a favourite haunt of the young couple, Bencab began to explore how these evocative images could be incorporated into his art. As a foreigner living within Britain of the late 1960s and 70s; a society which could be alternately austere and free-wheeling, even schizophrenically so; it is unsurprising Bencab felt a stirring connection to these relics of his native history, now relegated to nearly forgotten memorabilia in another ex-colonial country. Bencab also had the advantage of being objectively distant from his native land while spiritually free to explore the impulses resonating from deep within his soul. This led to a renewal of his Filipino identity within an unexpected location far from home. Through this jointure of parallel and juxtaposing images, Larawan emerged - a critique of social history, a commentary on the Filipino condition.
Similar to his Sabel works, Bencab retains a strong thematic interest in the undulating materiality of cloth and human attire. The outfits worn by his Larawan sitters are always of particular interest, with the folds and pat terns carefully ascribed. As Bencab investigates the traditional Filipiniana attire and attitudes of the colonial era, he lifts a veil to a time past: the arrival of Hispanic and Chinese migrants, the first indigenous plantation owners, richly garbed mestizas, starkly contrasted against other marginalised figures: the improverished, the downtrodden, the domestics. Through reforming colonial images and paying attention to the narrative quality of personal adornments and fabrics, Bencab immortalises these artefacts in a fixity of societal discourse rather than as mere documentary record-keeping; casting an introspective analysis on the colonial imposition and the disparity of social class, even as he illustrates the innate dignity of the country's founding men and women.
The Oriental Fan
Within The Oriental Fan, a young mestizo girl, perhaps a rich plantation owner's daughter, is lying in a hammock during her afternoon siesta hour in the hacienda. She is exceedingly beautiful, as told through her delicate features and long fall of dark hair cascading through the woven plaits of her hammock. However it is her direct gaze through finely browed eyes, and her winsome smile, which captures her innate sensuality and a deep sense of her historicity. With his strong humanistic streak and sensitivity to a finely tuned expression, we understand what must have captivated Bencab from the photographic template which he discovered in a book on Filipino history. The connection of her powerful gaze with that of the contemporary viewer is immediate and electrifying. Equally, if not more, important is the indio maidservant standing demurely in the background. Her downcast lids and devotion to the act of fanning her mistress demonstrates her station in life, as one of the silent majority who built Filipino society through long years of faithful servitude.
The quintessentially Spanish habit to cool away the heat of the afternoon is carried out with an oriental fan, a relic of Chinese migranthood which is a key strand within the multiracial heritage of the Philippines. The paper collage fan within this work, and the smaller fan trimmed from Chinese parchment, create an interesting dimension to its narrative, as though the actual colonial artefact itself is tangibly attached to the picture. Cid Reyes comments that throughout the Larawan works, Bencab has used the photorealist technique as a trompe l'oeil study. In this work however, the additional use of collaged elements elevates it beyond the basic function of optical textuality and deception. The act of affixing something physically extraneous to the visual artwork transforms the fragmented souvenir into a repository of nationalistic significance. Through this act of superimposition, The Oriental Fan evolves from a nostalgic entity into a resonant historical document in its own right; an archival showcase. The true mastery of Bencab's Larawan series comes from taking ownership of one's historical images and data, repossessing them, and thereby acquisitioning one's own cultural identity.
Lastly there is the third figure to consider, a woman whose body curves diagonally across the picture plane, her eyes closed, a petite earring dangling underneath her elegant cap of swept-back hair, her face in profile partially shaded by the same fan. The meticulous drapery reflects Bencab's affinity for textured folds of cloth, seen through the large fan-like sleeves of her traditional sinamay blouse. Unlike the central female figure, this woman with her small, rosebud mouth and less angular features could very well be a Chinese migrant, or a mestizo of Chinese descent. Her eyes closed, she appears to be musing over faded dreams of antiquity, even as her folding fan is being revived to decorate this work. Bencab illustrates prototypes of female migrants - the plantation owner's daughter, her maidservant, the Chinese woman and her folding fan. Apart from being a composition of outstanding aesthetic beauty, The Oriental Fan is a testament to the different sorts of women who inspired and shaped Filipino history.
The Family and Portrait of Caroline
The Family (Image of Sarejevo) (Lot 1172) was painted in 1994 for Caroline Kennedy who was working in Bosnia and Croatia during the Balkan War. Influenced by news footage of refugee families and Caroline's first-hand account of the political turmoil, the work is an empathic portrait of a family riven by the fatigues of war. Yet at the same time, it is also an archetypal representation of any peasant family with a swaddled infant, strong of limb and spirit, broken but not bowed in spite of catastrophic challenges. Through Bencab's social filter and penchant for depicting diasporic people, they could indeed be Filipino or any other nationality with an enduring connection to the land. Portrait of Caroline (The Artist's Wife) (Lot 1173) was a birthday gift for Caroline Kennedy in 1972, the same year that Bencab first developed the Larawan series. It exemplifies the photorealist aesthetic used within the Larawan pictures, complete with faded sepia tints, formal body posture and cleanly defined physiological lines. A comparable example is the iconic early Larawan work A Typical Mestiza, 1972. The rendition of the artist's wife as a virginal, goddess-like muse, with her tumbling locks and faraway expression, evokes a remote and almost pristine loveliness. The visage might be that of Caroline as he knew her best, but the affectionate perception behind the brush was wholly the artist's.