PROPERTY FROM THE JOSE ZAIDE COLLECTION
Fifty-Five "A"
signed and dated Manila 1955 (lower left)
oil on canvas
37 1/2" x 25 3/4" (95 cm x 65 cm)

PROVENANCE: Acquired directly from the artist by Jose F. Zaide
EXHIBITED: The Philippine Art Gallery, Manila, 1955.

LITERATURE
7 Years of the Philippine Art Gallery (1951-1957) : A Report Covering
Seven Years of Philippine Contemporary Art as Noted through the
Philippine Art Gallery. Listed in the General Catalogue 1951-1957,
as No. 732, “Fifty-Five “A””, Page Ap-14.

The Biggest Little Room; The Philippine Art Gallery; by Purita Kalaw-
Ledesma; Kalaw-Ledesma Art Foundation, 1987 Listed as part of

Hernando R. Ocampo works; Page 155
Pamana 13, June 1974. A Cultural Quarterly published by the
Cultural Center of the Philippines; edited by Alejandrino G. Hufana;
listed under the artworks by Hernando R. Ocampo, as No. 138,
“owned by Jose Zaide.”

A Gift to the Man Who Understood H. R. Ocampo : His Best Friend, Jose F. Zaide by LISA GUERRERO NAKPILJ ose F. Zaide was decidedly a gentlemen of the old school: The younger brother of the eminent historian Gregorio F. Zaide; he, too, was steeped in the elegant living and genteel lifestyle of the town of Pagsanjan, Laguna, where he was born and spent his early youth.Both men would figure in the newspapers of their day; Gregorio contributing a prodigious flow of historical articles to the newspapers of post-war Manila; Jose, becoming a more serious journalist.He would meet H.R. Ocampo, not as a student in the University of Sto. Tomas, but while Jose was working for the Elizalde daily, The Philippines Herald.At the time, H.R. had also begun working at PhilProm Ad Agency. The two hit it off almost immediately and Zaide would become one of H.R.’s closest confidantes. He would rely on his advice on certain delicate matters and Zaide would judiciously acquire several works by H.R. through the years.Like so many newspapermen of the time, Zaide entered the world of public service and would become a diplomat. He would be posted in various European capitals, from the Hague to various German cities.To be sure, H. R. Ocampo who was as multi-faceted as he had careers and talents, had many friends. To H.R., the newspaperman — he was the entertainment writer and later, editor of This Week Magazine — he had many journalists as drinking buddies and co-conspirators. There were also show-business folk from his beat, such as the director Ramon Estella. Many of them would form the core of the Neo-Realists at the start of the 1950s, such as Manansala and the columnist E. Aguilar Cruz. There were also friends made in the advertising business, such as Cesar Legaspi; and there were also literary types and fellow intellectuals. Jose Zaide would fall into this category and his family recalls that special bond from hours spent discussing the fine arts in the context of European traditions.Zaide would stop writing when he entered the world of foreign affairs. He would, however, come out of ‘retirement’ to write this moving eulogy to his old friend, Hernando R. Ocampo. It was described as “a tribute and evocation” published on December 30, 1978 in the Philippine Daily Express, after Ocampo’s passing on December 28th.It best describes the beauty and verve of the work at hand that once belonged to the man who understood H.R. Ocampo most of all, none other than his best friend.(The following article is a tribute to and evocation of the art of the celebrated Filipino artist who died Dec. 28, 1978. - Editor. Reprinted from the Daily Express newspaper, Dec. 30, 1978.)It was the French impressionist, Edgar Degas, master of the human figure in movement, who said: “The air we see in the paintings of Old Masters is never the air we breathe.”In a special way, this elegant formulation by the 19th- century French master fairly summed up the writer's impression after two visits last November to the three months’ retrospective exhibition of the works of painter Hernando R. Ocampo at the Museum of Philippine Art on Roxas Boulevard. Opening last October 5 and on view through the end of the year, the event certainly is the biggest retrospective show ever mounted as homage to a major Filipino artist. Assembling nearly one hundred canvases, mostly in oil, with a few sprinkling of acrylics. the exhibition chronicled Ocampo's four decades of struggle as an artist; from his lean, hungry days in the mid-thirties through his golden decades of the 60s and 70s.Freely Acknowledging his debt to the German artist Paul Klee and the Bauhaus school as one of the dominant influences on him as a painter, Ocampo is also heir to the great colorists of the past. A close look at his oeuvre and the cognoscenti couldn’t escape the feeling that there is more to his pictures than meets the eye. For if one looks longer, more visual images come to the surface. He manages to express volume and light in his own way by a system of superimposed glazes of pure colors and tone relations, where each color temperature correspond to a mood both of the physical world and the world of painting.Again his subjects emerge from forms that jostle and slide into a pattern like an avalanche. For a man so dedicated to trapping elusive motion, he successfully sets up some kind of visual dialogue between canvas and its observer so that only the most resistant can fail to come away from that encounter without a freshened perception of what “the essential life of color is.”Indeed, Ocampo's best works are notable for their evocation of a special magic marvelously distilled, a badge of quality that is his special strength. This quality, strongly suggestive of influences of Klee and Kandinsky might perhaps be best described in Bauhuasian vernacular as “a gift of complexity.” In a manner of speaking, his pictorial images function, for both eye and mind, on more than a single level of perception. To the uninitiated, his canvases might appear to be lyrical effusions but in reality, they do abound in metaphysical and psychological scenarios.There is much more in the pictures of this inspired eclectic than meets the impatient eye. His works generally divide into those full of melody, tenderness and beauty as well as those which contain pity for man and his condition.Eminently complementing his endowments as an artist is his quality as a person — warm and affable, indeed a human being of exceptional qualities. For instance, when our conversation touched on the works of Cesar Legaspi who, he opined, seems to be in his prime. “I have a feeling,” Ocampo told us, that Legaspi is painting better than I could possibly do today.”Needless to say, as father of the Philippine abtract movement whose germinal seeds began to sprout over three decades ago, Ocampo’s towering prestige as an artist of talent and integrity has been established beyond question. Along with equally bigname artists like Vicente Manansala, Legaspi, and Diosdado Lorenzo, this tight coterie of artists has long dominated the Philippine art scene and is generally acclaimed as precursor of the most vital strain of contemporary Filipino modem art. Not only that but the trail-blazing activities of Ocampo, Manansala et al have provided the yeast which has since spawned a rising breed of promising. talented young artists whose prodigious works, to their lasting credit, have contributed in no small measure towards enlivening the pervading cultural and artistic landscape in the Philippines today.It certainly is a hallmark of Ocampo's integrity as an artist that when he sauntered off into the sunset serenely at the age of 67, he had just about come to terms with himself in a resolute undertaking to commit his art wholeheartedly in celebrating life — its delights and iniquities.In the course of a chance conversation with the writer last November in his modest Maypajo residence, he casually let on that he was "now painting songs or visual melodies praising God and celebrating the sheer joy of living.”Somehow, his avowed commitment as an artist on the side of life reminded us of a thoughtful remark made by the First Lady Imelda Romualdez Marcos in late September 1976. Discoursing on the role of art in building a better society, she said, “I am persuaded that the function of art, all art for that matter, is to improve life and not debase it.”In a more meaningful sense, the cosmos of the painter Ocampo attest to the validity of certain half-forgotten social truths, namely the power of art to ennoble man.EXPLORING THE COSMOS OF PAINTER H.R. OCAMPOby JOSE F. ZAIDE