Rajasthan Temples
signed (lower right), ca. 2003
acrylic on canvas
36" x 48" (91 cm x 122 cm)

Accompanied by a certificate issued by Ms. Luisa Luz-Lansiganconfirming the authenticity of this lot




WRITE UP:
In viewing Arturo Luz’s works from his beloved Cities of the Past Series, one is immediately transported into the sublime glory of ancient civilizations and their profoundly unique contributions to the field of tangible cultural heritage. Luz’s works in his Cities of the Past manifest the compelling power not only of one’s imaginative faculty but more so the unbounded power and expressiveness of a reinvigorated psyche. Burdened and exhausted with his numerous responsibilities at the Design Center Philippines, the Metropolitan Museum of Manila, and the Museum of Philippine Art, Luz would gradually resign from each of his posts within the years 1985 to 1987. By 1988, Luz would embark on a revitalizing excursion across the Asian continent. With his newfound existence and artistic purpose came the genesis of the Cities of the Past, in which life is immediately breathed into lost civilizations, much like the “lost artistic life” he had just regained after decades of stringency brought by bureaucratic responsibilities. Luz described the Cities of the Past as “composite images from memory. They are imagined, transformed, [and] invented.” The Cities of the Past oeuvre comprises one in a series of iconic works of the artist during the 1990s, including Celebration, Carnival Forms, and Forms of Amusement; all of these are the most coveted in his oeuvre and thus have become the quintessential Arturo Luz. During that decade up to his final years, Luz kept returning to his original themes of the carnival and cityscapes—subjects that imbued him with satisfaction and earned him deserving acclaim in the early phases of his painting career. Likely realizing the significance of those watershed moments during that momentous Asian excursion, Luz had just encountered a joyous and fulfilling full-circle moment. (Adrian Maranan)