Onib Olmedo (1937 - 1996)
A Neighbor of the Artist in Sampaloc
signed and dated 1975 (lower right)
oil on canvas
30" x 30" (76 cm x 76 cm)


Accompanied by a certificate issued by Ms. Gisella Olmedo-Aranetaconfirming the authenticity of this lot




Onib Olmedo’s oils and pastels have been characterized by somber and brooding colors. This chromatic choice heightens and reinforces his perception and a consequential visual characterization of people and their bodies, at a certain moment. He portrayed individuals with features distorted into grotesque grimaces or sardonic glower. Olmedo used distortion, wrote critic Alice G. Guillermo, “as a tool to probe the depths of the human character. Because of this, he is often considered as expressionist, and rightly so.” It would have taken a while for the public to appreciate the painter’s creative production for their cathartic value but Olmedo’s distortion of figurative expressionism became a tool for him to expose the repressed psyches of his subjects. Olmedo was a master at creating portraits. These were usually quick studies, and always he picked up what was distinctive about a person’s face or appearance, then coupled that with a characteristic expression, or if he knew the person, a trait or a quirk or a preoccupation. His friends, whom he sometimes sketched across the table, would beg him “not to try to make us pretty” as his sense of pulchritude on sketchpad was different. In this portrait of a gentleman — with a startling resemblance to the barkeep Taboy of ‘Taboy’s Cinco Litros on Onib’s home turf of M. H. del Pilar Street in Malate — Olmedo probed the point where physical appearance with its social conventions gave way to the spirit within, which he allowed to take over the natural physical attributes. His uncommonly unconventional portraits of everyday people put on display essential qualities of the person amazingly and economically -- with the stroke of a pen, a dab of india ink, a smudging of charcoal. This work is once again an interesting result of Olmedo’s pursuit of the human essence and his contemplation of what the other person could be. With oil, he would favor sooty greys, dark greens and blues, and black. It’s a record of a very particular time and place in the seamy side of Manila, a favorite hunting ground for this astute chronicler of characters that included “waifs, street urchins, vendors, bookies and bettors, nightclub hostesses, destitute gamblers and the folk ground down by life in the big city.” In truth, Luis Veloso Olmedo, aka Onib, was an architect by profession. A graduate of the Mapua Institute of Technology, he actually placed 7th in the government licensure exams for the profession. Olmedo would have his first one-man show at the iconic Solidaridad Galleries in 1971 at the ripe old age of 34 and would only decide to press on as a full-time artist a few years later. That first solo exhibit, acerbically titled “Singkong Suka” would give rise to two more instalments : “Kisneng Suka” in 1975, where this painting may have belonged; and then “Benteng Suka” the following year in 1976. He would go on, however, to have an eventful and stellar career, reaping many awards and recognitions. In 1992, he would be named one of the CCP’s Thirteen Artists and receive various prizes in an international exposition in France.