Men and Carabaos
signed and dated 1952 (lower left)
oil on wood
36” x 28” (91 cm x 71 cm)

Provenance:
Private Collection, USA

A master of making the rustic and bucolic sublime, Tabuena confesses to having been influenced by Cubism, and earlier, the Chinese, especially their floating landscapes. Often classified as belonging to the postwar Neorealist movement, his then fresh approach to form created a Filipino aesthetic all his own.

Having led a charmed peripatetic life around the world (after his studies in the Philippines he was also a student at the Art Students League of New York, and the Académie de la Grande Chaumière in Paris) before settling down in Mexico with his Norwegian wife Nina in 1955, this painting is among his works that evoke Philippine memories what with coconut trees, farmers in the fields all rendered in his signature horizonless stamp.

It was in his later years in Mexico that he was to develop a colorful, prismatic style with the folk of his adopted land for subjects .