Arturo Luz (1926 - 2021)
Carnival Forms
dated 1958
enamel on canvas
22" x 24" (56 cm x 61 cm)

PROPERTY FORMERLY FROM THE JIMENA AUSTRIA COLLECTION

PROVENANCE:Acquired directly from the Philippine Art Galleryby Ms. Jimena Austria, as evidenced by the labelaffixed on the back of the artwork, (shown above.);Multinational Bancorporation;Acquired from the above by the present owner
EXHIBITED:Philippine Art Gallery, December 20 - January 10, 1960
LITERATURE:Reyes, Cid. Arturo Luz. Ayala Foundation andThe Crucible Gallery for Globe Telecom. Makati City.1999. Full-color illustration on page 122.Kalaw-Ledesma, Purita. Philippine Art Gallery :The Biggest Little Room, Kalaw-Ledesma Foundation,1987. Listed on page 151, under the entry “Enamel :Carnival Forms”, works by Arturo R. Luz exhibitedat the Philippine Art Gallery.

In every generation, a cool kid arrives on the Philippine art scene; and they didn’t come cooler and more hip than the foreign-educated Arturo Rogerio Luz, descended from Lipa gentry. Cesar Legaspi, (himself later a National Artist), reminiscing about those times, would recall how he and his fellow artists would sit enthralled at Luz’ accounts of the American and European cultural circuit. Arturo Rogerio Luz had just spent a year at the Brooklyn Museum Art School in New York in 1950; and another year afterwards in Paris at the Academie de la Grande Chaumiere. Upon his return to Manila, he quickly became part of the second generation of abstract artists that came after the Neo-Realists. This first wave of pioneering modernists were H.R. Ocampo, Ramon A. Estella, Vicente S. Manansala, Victor Oteyza, Cesar F. Legaspi who, with the exception of Romeo V. Tabuena, were all more than a decade older than Luz. That detail about his relatively young age would not deter him from making his mark; and Luz’s first one-man show would actually be at a gallery in Paris in 1950. He would have two more one-man shows in 1951 : the first at the Manila Hotel and the second at the newly opened Philippine Art Gallery. Luz was the epitome of the young, ambitious artist. He would be named best in the ‘Modern Art’ category of the 5th Annual Exhibition of the Art Association of the Philippines (A.A.P.), almost as soon as he returned and would receive magazine cover status. He achieved this, incidentally, for the work Bagong Taon which depicted in a few frugal strokes all the spirited revelry of a new year’s celebration. Luz did that in the same year, in 1952, as another American-educated artist, Anita Magsaysay, would take the grand prize.) He would begin to win prizes on a regular basis : First Prize in the ‘Abstract Art’ category for Venezia No. III at the 11th Annual Art Exhibition of the A.A.P. in 1958 — the same year that Carnival Forms was created. It was followed up with an even stronger showing the following year in 1959: Taking top prize for Forms of Amusement for the 12th AAP Exhibition and then again, for City, at the Semi-Annual Exhibition for the same year. Arturo Luz would go on to perfect the sleek minimalist style that would define his career, a zen-like shorthand that would distinguish both his paintings and sculptures. Carnival Forms is the seminal work on that theme and one that he would make famous in various series of musicians and performers. It is created on enamel, a signature mid-century material that captured the mood for experimentation in that era. A few years before he had exhibited, also at the P.A.G. a series of drawings, including Carnival #2 and Carnival #3, which are directly related to this work. A photograph still in existence shows this proto-typical series. The work at hand appears to have a finely textured surface as its ground. Precise lines variously outline a ferris wheel, the fun-fair booths and enclosures of a circus. They form a delicate net of cross-hatching, much like a rake drawing lines on an expanse of sand in a Japanese garden. The work is a serene if buoyant neutral color, far away from the intense sunlit colors of an Amorsolo or Botong Francisco. Even Luz’ color palette was deliberately austere. It is an outstanding artwork representing not only the beginnings of Luz’ artistic trajectory but the entire zeitgeist of the times : Forward-looking, dynamic, and brimming with all the optimism of that new post-war age. (Lisa Guerrero Nakpil)