H. R. Ocampo: Bon Vivant
Hernando R. Ocampo (1911-1978)
Bon Vivant
signed and dated 1969 (lower right)
oil on canvas
30” x 40” (76 cm x 102 cm)
Opening bid: P 7,000,000
Provenance:
The painting was purchased directly from the artist by Jay
Vernon Townley (went by Vern or J. V. ), a Ford Executive
who worked in the Philippines from 1966 to 1973, and
then to the current owner by descent.
Lot 131 of the Leon Gallery auction on 2 December 2017. Please see www.leon-gallery.com for more information.
Hernando R. Ocampo became famous as the ringleader of the ‘Neo-Realist’ group of painters who sought to express the new modern reality with their abstract art. The other artists were Cesar Legaspi (said to be HR’s closest friend), Vicente Manansala, Victor Oteyza, as well as the young turks Romeo Tabuena and film director Ramon Estella. They regarded as their spiritual leaders, Victorio Edades and Carlos V. Francisco. H.R. Ocampo’s biographer Angel G. de Jesus has always claimed that “Ocampo and Edades are the two real pioneers of the Philippine modernist movement.”
H.R. would make headlines as the first-prize winner of the Art Association of the Philippines (AAP) influential competition in 1951 — in the glory days of the Philippine Art Gallery, which he would helm in the absence of its founder Lyd Arguilla. Ocampo would return triumphantly for another AAP first-prize in 1969, the year “Bon Vivant” was created. That work was called “Circle” which, more or less, describes the path that H.R.’s career had taken over a single decade.
Writing in 1978, on the occasion of a monumental retrospective for his friend at the Museum of Philippine Art, de Jesus also took the occasion to write in detail on the subject of H.R. Ocampo’s distinctive and famous use of color. “Although his color theories have been ascribed to Josef Albers, an authority in color relations who painted pure geometric abstractions and taught experimental design at Bauhaus, there is a uniqueness in Ocampo’s color which many familiar with Western art have remarked on. It has been variously described as iridescent, sumptuous, glaring, and — above all — Oriental.” Those words richly describe the different luminous hues and shades of red that dance across the work at hand, “Bon Vivant”. “Bon Vivant” is French for ‘he who lives the good life’ — and it was also the name of the only French restaurant in Manila at the time, an establishment run by the society maven and chef Nora Villanueva Daza, which of course, attracted Manila’s very own bon vivants. “Bon Vivant” thus expresses all the sensory and sensual delights of fine living — from food and drink, to love and money. The work simply courses and reverberates with ecstasy and enjoyment, indeed, all of the imaginable effects of the seven deadly sins.
Had he had this mesmerizing work in mind, Angel de Jesus would have been correct when he wrote, “Ocampo’s mastery of color is complemented by an originality of subject which provides intense pleasurable excitement.” H.R., after all, was no stranger to the world of imagination having been one of the country’s best short story writers in both English and Filipino and a journalist of renown, editor of the Manila Sunday Chronicle Magazine, in whose pages who would highlight the talents of many fellow Filipino artists, poets and writers.
“Bon Vivant” is from the same “Visual Melody” period that H.R. Ocampo identified as his most fertile. He termed it as ‘pure painting’ — something akin to chamber music, said his biographer. This masterpiece brings to mind Ocampo’s legendary “Genesis (Simula)” which was painted for the Cultural Center of the Philippines and 'was blown up to make the enormous curtain of the Center’s Theater for the Performing Arts’, woven by tapestry artists of Kyoto, Japan.
-Lisa Guerrero Nakpil
H. R. Ocampo: Bon Vivant
Hernando R. Ocampo (1911-1978)
Bon Vivant
signed and dated 1969 (lower right)
oil on canvas
30” x 40” (76 cm x 102 cm)
Opening bid: P 7,000,000
Provenance:
The painting was purchased directly from the artist by Jay
Vernon Townley (went by Vern or J. V. ), a Ford Executive
who worked in the Philippines from 1966 to 1973, and
then to the current owner by descent.
Lot 131 of the Leon Gallery auction on 2 December 2017. Please see www.leon-gallery.com for more information.
Hernando R. Ocampo became famous as the ringleader of the ‘Neo-Realist’ group of painters who sought to express the new modern reality with their abstract art. The other artists were Cesar Legaspi (said to be HR’s closest friend), Vicente Manansala, Victor Oteyza, as well as the young turks Romeo Tabuena and film director Ramon Estella. They regarded as their spiritual leaders, Victorio Edades and Carlos V. Francisco. H.R. Ocampo’s biographer Angel G. de Jesus has always claimed that “Ocampo and Edades are the two real pioneers of the Philippine modernist movement.”
H.R. would make headlines as the first-prize winner of the Art Association of the Philippines (AAP) influential competition in 1951 — in the glory days of the Philippine Art Gallery, which he would helm in the absence of its founder Lyd Arguilla. Ocampo would return triumphantly for another AAP first-prize in 1969, the year “Bon Vivant” was created. That work was called “Circle” which, more or less, describes the path that H.R.’s career had taken over a single decade.
Writing in 1978, on the occasion of a monumental retrospective for his friend at the Museum of Philippine Art, de Jesus also took the occasion to write in detail on the subject of H.R. Ocampo’s distinctive and famous use of color. “Although his color theories have been ascribed to Josef Albers, an authority in color relations who painted pure geometric abstractions and taught experimental design at Bauhaus, there is a uniqueness in Ocampo’s color which many familiar with Western art have remarked on. It has been variously described as iridescent, sumptuous, glaring, and — above all — Oriental.” Those words richly describe the different luminous hues and shades of red that dance across the work at hand, “Bon Vivant”. “Bon Vivant” is French for ‘he who lives the good life’ — and it was also the name of the only French restaurant in Manila at the time, an establishment run by the society maven and chef Nora Villanueva Daza, which of course, attracted Manila’s very own bon vivants. “Bon Vivant” thus expresses all the sensory and sensual delights of fine living — from food and drink, to love and money. The work simply courses and reverberates with ecstasy and enjoyment, indeed, all of the imaginable effects of the seven deadly sins.
Had he had this mesmerizing work in mind, Angel de Jesus would have been correct when he wrote, “Ocampo’s mastery of color is complemented by an originality of subject which provides intense pleasurable excitement.” H.R., after all, was no stranger to the world of imagination having been one of the country’s best short story writers in both English and Filipino and a journalist of renown, editor of the Manila Sunday Chronicle Magazine, in whose pages who would highlight the talents of many fellow Filipino artists, poets and writers.
“Bon Vivant” is from the same “Visual Melody” period that H.R. Ocampo identified as his most fertile. He termed it as ‘pure painting’ — something akin to chamber music, said his biographer. This masterpiece brings to mind Ocampo’s legendary “Genesis (Simula)” which was painted for the Cultural Center of the Philippines and 'was blown up to make the enormous curtain of the Center’s Theater for the Performing Arts’, woven by tapestry artists of Kyoto, Japan.
-Lisa Guerrero Nakpil