Leon Gallery auctions 5 major works for M Museum benefit

Lot 91. Ang Kiukok – Table With Avocados

Leon Gallery, the country’s premier auction house, will auction important artworks to benefit the Metropolitan Museum of Manila’s Art For All program in The Kingly Treasures Auction  on December 4, 2021, 2 p.m.

Inspired by its governing philosophy, Art for All, the Metropolitan Museum of Manila strives to be an all-inclusive museum where people from all walks of life can have a more intimate appreciation and understanding of the arts. Continuing to evolve and adapt to the changing times, it is moving to the center of Bonifacio Global City’s thriving cultural space.

“This new location materializes not only a change in architecture but also a vigorous rethinking of its collections, exhibitions, curatorial directions, and audience engagements. It is important to reach out to this new generation of museum-goers as they will provide a fresh take on our tangible heritage, interpreting it through their own unique lens inflected with the concerns and ambitions of their milieu,” says Joselito Campos, Jr., chairman of the Met’s board of trustees.

“A well-established financial, commercial, and leisure district, BGC now becomes a cultural hub as well, not unlike the other cities of the world animated by the energies of their contemporary art museums. While the Met has long established its reputation as the foremost art space for international exhibitions, its location furthers its global identity within this new context, in light of a future informed by the somber lessons of a pandemic,” adds Campos.

With its new home, The Metropolitan Museum of Manila is also rebranding itself with a catchy moniker—The M.

The M opens towards the end of 2021 or the first quarter of 2022, in a 3,000 sqm space spread across three levels designed by Filipino-born and Brooklyn-based architect Carlos Arnaiz. The M’s inauguration will feature Philippine modern and contemporary art surveys, international exchanges with its cultural partner institutions, retrospective exhibitions of National Artists for Visual Arts, and leading figures in contemporary art.

Five artworks are to be auctioned for the benefit of The M, starting  with Seated Figure by National Artist for Visual Arts Ang Kiukok. One of Kiukok’s most classic series, it is emblematic of his figurative works from the 1980s that showcases his exploration of Cubist-inspired aesthetics.

National Artist Arturo Luz, a stalwart of the Philippine Art Gallery, will be represented by Six Cyclists.

Three artworks in this group, dubbed as The Collector’s Bounty, are from the collections of Mario and Mimi Que, Manuel and Alice Que, and Paulino and Hetty Que—among the country’s foremost art collectors.

In Taking Me To Itself, leading abstract expressionist Jigger Cruz traverses the concept of healing. Raffy Napay’s Trees explores the innate relationship between humans and nature.

Ang Kiukok’s Table with Avocados, from the collection of Paulino and Hetty Que, is a donation in full from the couple in support of the new building of the Metropolitan Museum in BGC.

Aside from its support to The M, Leon Gallery will also highlight important lots from Filipino masters representing different eras and generations in Philippine art history.

Among these are the maestro Fernando Amorsolo’s works from his Golden Years: two paintings dubbed “The Centennial Amorsolos:” A Terraced Farmland and Sunset Over the Stream, both from the collection of Tarsila Laperal Mendoza. Two works—Burning of Manila and Town Fiesta—both from the Don Anselmo Trinidad Collection depicts the juxtaposition and contradictions between wartime and peacetime in the Philippines. A fifth work, Under the Mango Tree, is among the first of Amorsolo’s iconic Under the Mango Tree paintings.

Hernando R. Ocampo’s Mutants – A belongs to the artist’s Mutants Period (1964 – 1968). According to Angel G. de Jesus, Ocampo’s most authoritative biographer, this period was inspired by the film The Beginning of the End, which inspired Ocampo to paint “symbols of mutants, and fantasies of the havoc wrought by nuclear warfare.”

Ronald Ventura’s Francism depicts a Catholic penitent holding a crucifix, with the stigmata wounds of Saint Francis of Assisi marking his hands. According to Leon Gallery, this piece is the artist’s visual critique of religious people’s “superficial piety masqueraded as a zealous profession of faith.”

Rounding up this list is a Mesa Altar in the “Dinemonyo” Style from the 17th to 18th centuries. According to Augusto Marcelino Reyes Gonzalez III, this is an authentic example of a “dinemonyo” altar table with “grotesque masques of red-purple tindalo wood from Manila or Southern Luzon.”

These exquisite lots are open for viewing from November 27 to December 3, 9 a.m. to 7 p.m., Saturday to Friday, at León Gallery, G/F Eurovilla 1, Rufino corner Legazpi Streets, Legaspi Village, Makati City. This event is co-presented by ANCX.ph, and the lifestyle website of the ABS-CBN News Channel. For further inquiries, email [email protected] or contact +632 8856-27-81. To browse The Kingly Treasures Auction catalog, visit www.leon-gallery.com. For updates, follow León Gallery on their social media pages: Facebook – www.facebook.com/leongallerymakati and Instagram @leongallerymakati.