OAKLAND, Calif. – The last monumental canvas created by Hernando Ruiz Ocampo (1911-1978) will be offered at Clars Auction Gallery on Thursday, March 21. Dating to the last year of the artist’s life, when Ocampo has reached national treasure status in his native Philippines, the scroll painting has an estimate of $700,000-$1 million. The catalog is now open for bidding at LiveAuctioneers.
Together with contemporaries Vicente Manansala and Cesar Legaspi, Ocampo was the leader of the modernist movement in the Philippines, championing Filipino Neo-Realism in the years after the Second World War. The Neo-Realists took their inspiration from the struggles of workers, family life, poverty, and the local landscape while painting in a style influenced by the European and American avant-garde.
The monumental 29ft scroll-like work presented at Clars is one of only two pictures made by the artist in this size. Titled Mga Kiti, it is rendered in acrylic paint on Tetoron fabric with a repeating pattern of forms that echo human figures, birds, lotus pods, and cellular structures. The style is reminiscent of batik, the Indonesian technique of wax-resistant dyeing of cloth.
Commissioned by Ocampo patron Ginny Jacinto, it was the final painting the artist completed before he died in December 1978. Several earlier paintings by Hernando Ruiz Ocampo have sold in the past for more than $500,000, most at Makati City auction house Leon Gallery. However, a $1 million sale of Mga Kiti would represent a new record for the artist at auction.
