Nena Saguil (1924 - 1994)
Peace & Plenty
signed and dated 1950 (lower left)
oil on board
25 1/2" x 19 1/2" (65 cm x 50 cm)



PROVENANCE;Acquired from Ramon Villegasby the present owner, c. 1990s.



Like her mentor Victorio Edades, Nena Saguil rebelled against the Amorsolo standard of Filipino beauty: Slim, smiling and bright-eyed. Building on the solid figures Edades preferred, she depicts in Peace and Plenty the very picture of these titular qualities. Yet it is a full-figured older woman who sits placidly beneath a bamboo tree who expresses these postwar hopes and dreams. The motherly figure — no Amorsolo maiden here — sits comfortably with her feet half out their hard bakya (wooden clogs). Her eyes are averted, perhaps even halfshut, visible underneath the traditional head kerchief worn by farmwomen in the Philippines. She smiles half to herself as she feeds the chickens who peck lazily around her. There are a rooster, a hen and several chicks who perhaps remind her of her preoccupations with her own family unwittingly. In contrast to the recent War years, the fields are green and the harvests are now bountiful; there is more than enough rice to go around. The rhythms of life have returned. In the distance the business, hard as it may be, of planting, threshing and winnowing have been restored. A pair of carabao, one in a lightfooted gambol, complete the picture of bucolic bliss. In the work at hand, however, Saguil appears to be at one with Amorsolo in extolling the virtues of a country life. It must be remembered, that while Edades had opened the doors to modern art in the Philippines as early as 1928, that impetus was cut short abruptly by World War II. The Philippine Art Gallery, the first to support abstract art exclusively, was still a twinkle in its founder Lyd Arguilla’s eyes. It was to open its doors a little more than a year after this painting was made. The label affixed on the reverse of the work carries the following details apart from the artist’s name and the title of the painting : It includes ‘Place of Painting” as ‘2035 Escaler, Manila’ (Escaler Street in Sta. Cruz, Manila still exists to this day); and ‘Date of Painting’ as ‘Jan. 30, 1950’ with the ‘Price’ of P50. The main location for selling exhibitions were to be found at the events organized by the Art Association of the Philippines, which had been founded by 13 charter members led by Purita Kalaw-Ledesma in 1948. Its first site was at a building on Padre Faura which is now home to the Supreme Court. The A.A.P.’s actual offices would be at the ‘pock-marked National Museum’ on Herran Street, where its early exhibitions were held. It would start these exhibits in 1948 as well. The 17 year old Nena Saguil (seated, second from right) at a party at the home of Victorio Edades, (seated, second row at the center.) In 1950, there were three such exhibitions, two at the National Museum: The 3rd Annual Art Exhibition, on January 28, 1960, making it too late for this work to have been submitted. There were two others : The 3rd Semi-Annual Art Exhibition on July 4, 1950; and the Manila Grand Opera House Art Exhibition. Either may have been this work’s locus. (It was at the latter that Vicente Manansala created a sensation with his work “Barong Barong No. 1” that took home the first prize.) Interestingly, the following year in 1951, Nena Saguil would place “Honorable Mention” in the Modern Category for a work “Mother and Child”. It would be the first year that the Art Association of the Philippines would formally divide the competition between what was called “Conservative” art and “Modern.” Saguil would have gravitated to the Philippine Art Gallery by then and thrown her lot in with its vision. This work thus represents the last of an era and the beginning of a new one, as Saguil moves from one world-view to another, a historic testament to a changing order.