Hernando R. Ocampo (1911 - 1978)
Hat Weavers
signed and dated Manila 1940 (lower right)
oil on canvas
19 1/4" x 26 1/8" (48 cm x 66 cm)

PROPERTY FROM THE DON EUGENIO LOPEZ JR. COLLECTION



LITERATURE:Beller, Jonathan. Acquiring Eyes: Philippine Visuality,Nationalist Struggle, and the World Media System.Ateneo de Manila University Press. Quezon City.2006. Featured on the book cover; Page 104 witha black and white illustration listed as "Fig. 6"on the book plates.De Jesus, Angel G. H.R. Ocampo: The Artist asFilipino. Heritage Publishing House. Quezon City.1979. Page 99 with an illustration on page 98.Duldulao, Manuel D. The Philippine Art Scene.Maber Books, Inc. Manila. 1977.Full-color illustration on page 114.Tiongson, Nicanor G., ed. Artista ng Bayan 1991.Cultural Center of the Philippines. Manila. 1991.Black-and-white illustration on page 25.

It was an important export of the Philippines, until so often happens, the original materials and ingenuity of the Filipino is taken over by the workers from another country. Hat weaving would have a steady run until the start of the Second World War. In the 1940s, it had started to become antiquated but was still, for H.R. Ocampo, the city-dweller from Maypajo, Caloocan, a perfect device to express that H.R. himself would call his “proletariat period”, dedicated to portraying the working class who had become commodities, or commodified, in fact, de-humanized — anonymous — just like the hats they wove. The pretty pastel colors H.R. uses are in marked contrast to its message. In a sense it is a pictorial companion to a short story he wrote in this period, called “Rice and Bullets”, which puts together the imagery of the food of life and the fodder of death. H.R. was very much the iconoclast — the man who liked to upend the establishment and established beliefs. And here, you can see his subversion of the norm. Beller has a wonderful way of describing this painting “The very representation of these figures shows that they are caught in a new logic.They may have eyes to weave hats but they cannot see themselves with the eyes of modernity and history, eyes that see them as materials with which to weave the future.” ___ Hernando R. Ocampo was named Philippine National Artist for the Visual Arts in 1991.