The auction, Alfredo and Irene Roces: A Collection of 85 Years of Philippine Art, is on March 15, 2025, 2 p.m., at Eurovilla 1, Rufino corner Legazpi Streets, Legazpi Village, Makati City.
In the history of Philippine art, only few can claim the distinction of being a true renaissance man. Alfredo Roces, eminent writer and artist, is one, and his equally distinguished collection is the focus of the special auction, Alfredo and Irene Roces: A Collection of 85 Years of Philippine Art (1934 – 2019), happening March 15, 2025, 2 p.m.
“Mr. Roces is a foremost stalwart of the Filipino humanities,” Leon Gallery director Jaime Ponce de Leon wrote in the catalog’s foreword. “He is an artist, art collector, writer, editor, historian, educator, photographer, and a dear friend to many of our venerable painters, printmakers, and sculptors.”
Roces’ illustrious career mirrors the magnificent history of Philippine art. Isidra Reyes wrote in the catalog prologue that “his long career, from the 1940s onwards, parallels the development of Modern Philippine Art from its infancy as a reaction against the Conservatives to its struggle to assert itself and eventually dominate the Philippine Art Scene.”
Indeed, art has been central to Roces’ life. The youngest in a brood of nine sons, Roces recalls the art works that hung on the walls of the family house in Taft Avenue. Hidalgo, Amorsolo, Fabian de la Rosa, Jorge Pineda, and José Honorato Lozano were featured prominently in their home, and his father, Don Rafael Filomeno Gonzales Roces, himself an art aficionado, nurtured Roces’ budding interest.
Roces’ most enduring legacy is his work as a co-founder of the Saturday Group
LOT 78, José Joya (1931 – 1995, Kanlaon, signed and dated July 30, 1974 (lower right and verso), oil, 12” x 17” (30 cm x 43 cm)
LOT 79, Onib Olmedo (1937-1996), The Basketball Team of the Saturday Group, signed and dated 1971 (lower right), oil on canvas, 30” x 30” (76 cm x 76 cm)
Roces’ most enduring legacy is his work as a co-founder of the Saturday Group. A weekly coffee shop gathering of artists, writers, curators, and collectors, Saturday Group fostered camaraderie among its members. It became a melting pot of ideas and collaborations, its members including prominent artists like H.R. Ocampo, Jose Joya, Onib Olmedo, Cesar Legaspi, Mauro Malang Santos, Arturo Luz, BenCab, and of course, Alfredo Roces.
Roces introduced “interaction” painting sessions which eventually became the Saturday Group’s most important contribution to Philippine art. Greatly inspired by his trip to China in 1965, where he saw communal street and media art work, he endeavored to create similar collaborative works without losing each artist’s individuality.
LOT 15, Hernando R. Ocampo (1911 – 1978), Portrait of the Neo-Realist Victor Oteyza, signed and dated 1948 (lower right),oil on wood, 28” x 17” (71 cm x 43 cm)
LOT 26, Alfredo Roces (b. 1932), Hernando R. Ocampo (1911 – 1978), and Florinda Trinidad Ferrer, Untitled, signed (upper left), collage, 24” x 31 3/4” (61 cm x 81 cm)
LOT 27, Alfredo Roces (b. 1932) & Hernando R. Ocampo (1911 – 1978), Abstraction 71-K, signed and dated 1971 (lower left), collage, 13 1/2” x 11” (34 cm x 28 cm)
Interaction works by Alfredo Roces, Hernando R. Ocampo, and Florinda Trinidad Ferrer are among this auction’s highlights, as well as another Interaction painting between Roces and H.R. Ocampo.
Hernando Ocampo is a key player in the Saturday Group, and his works are among the most prized in Roces’ collection. His 1948 Portrait of Victor Oteyza shows the strong bond between two pioneering neo-realists. Angel G. de Jesus’ book on Ocampo elaborated on their friendship: “They visited each other’s studios, talked about each other’s paintings, and learned about their mistakes and faults. In that way, they improved their art and technique on the basis of what they learned from each other.”
Ocampo and Oteyza were major proponents of non-objective art.
Ocampo’s 1953 work titled Fifty-Three “J” is an exemple of his dynamic dexterity in non-objective painting. One of his two entries in the second anniversary exhibition of the Philippine Art Gallery in 1953, this magnificent work found its way in the significant collection of Roces.
‘Dad was very good friends with H.R. Ocampo, and they would regularly gift each other their paintings and exchange paintings’
Grace Boorman, Roces’ daughter, described his father’s bond with Ocampo, in a correspondence with Leon Gallery:
“Dad was very good friends with H.R. Ocampo, and they would regularly gift each other their paintings and exchange paintings. (H.R. Ocampo) more likely gifted (this work) to my Dad or exchanged it for one of Dad’s paintings.”
LOT 23, Ang Kiukok (1931 – 2005), Breakfast I, signed and dated 1961 (lower right), oil on board, 21” x 26” (53 cm x 66 cm)
Roces’ colleagues in the Saturday Group are also represented in this sale—the works of Cesar Legaspi, Arturo Luz, Ang Kiukok, Jose Joya, and Onib Olmedo are among the very special lots.
LOT 25, Anita Magsaysay-Ho (1914 – 2012), Boy with a Hat, signed and dated 1934 (lower left), oil on Masonite, 14 1/2” x 12” (37 cm x 30 cm)
LOT 25, Anita Magsaysay-Ho (1914 – 2012), Montalban Landscape, signed and dated 1944 (lower left), oil on Masonite, 12” x 14 1/2” (30 cm x 37 cm)
Anita Magsaysay-Ho’s rare back-to-back painting, Boy with a Hat and Montalban Landscape, shows the two facets of the foremost Filipina painter. Boy with a Hat is one of Anita’s earliest paintings, showing the great influence her mentor, Fernando Amorsolo, had on her. She painted this in the final year of her studies at the UP School of Fine Arts in 1934, and it depicts Anita in her conservative beginnings.
On the other hand, Montalban Landscape portrays Anita’s earliest foray into modernism. Painted at the height of World War II, this work is an impressionistic depiction of the mountains of Montalban, Rizal. Like many artists during that time, Anita had to conserve his art materials. She opted to bring her old paintings along and paint back-to-back, this work resulting in a magnificent visual portrayal of her transition to modernism.
In as much as Roces’ career traversed through the different periods in the history of Philippine art, his collection certainly does too. A tale, too, of melancholia follows this collection. As Roces himself wrote in his Collector’s Notes, he had to leave behind a majority of his collection when Martial Law effectively ended his career as newspaper columnist. Believing this move was temporary, the Roces family brought only the most essential things in their move abroad, leaving behind this collection in the family’s bodegas.
Now, in a symbolic turnover from one generation to another, Roces parts once again with his prized possessions. These works, either acquired or personally gifted by his fellow artists, now seek new homes.
“I sincerely hope and trust that the artists whose works I must now reluctantly part with, will understand and forgive,” Roces writes. “The sentimental and highly personal attachment I have for these objects cannot be measured in material terms, for these artworks represent not mere aesthetics, but artistic appreciation and personal camaraderie.”—Adrian Maranan
The auction, Alfredo and Irene Roces: A Collection of 85 Years of Philippine Art, is on March 15, 2025, 2 p.m., at Eurovilla 1, Rufino corner Legazpi Streets, Legazpi Village, Makati City. Preview week is March 8 to 14, 2024, from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. For further inquiries, email info@leon-gallery.com or contact +632 8856-27-81. To browse the catalog, visit www.leon-gallery.com.
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