De Jesus, Diane Kristel

4T3

De Jesus, Diane Kristel

Maglaya, Ma. Roda Mara

Santos, Mara Angelica

Santiago, Sharmaine Kim

Zulueta, Micaa

HERNANDO R. OCAMPO

Recognized as a National Artist in Visual Arts in 1991, Hernando R. Ocampo, also known as H. R. Ocampo, was a leading figure in modern Philippine art. He was a member of the Saturday Group of artists, and was one of the Thirteen Moderns, a group of modernist artists founded in 1938 and led by Victorio C. Edades. He also formed the triumvirate of neo-realists with Vicente S. Manansala and Cesar Legaspi. His artworks were nationalistic and reflected the harsh realities of the country after World War II. However, many of his works also depicted the beautiful Philippine landscape.
Ocampo was born to Emilio Ocampo and Delfina Ruiz on April 28, 1911 in Santa Cruz, Manila. He studied law, commerce and creative writing, and first became a writer before he got into the visual arts. He started working at the Philippine Education Company in 1931, and then went on to work as executive secretary of the National Paper Mills, Inc. in 1935. He was also in the script department of Palaris Feler and Fernando Poe Productions after the war.
During his career as a writer, he was one of the organizers of the Veronicans, a group of young writers, which Francisco Arcellana, Estrella Alfon, N.V.M. Gonzalez, Manuel Viray and Angel G. de Jesus were a part of. He was known for his prize-winning fiction “Bakya,” and “Rice and Bullets.” Ocampo wrote plays for the stage during the Japanese Occupation, and even became the chief scriptwriter and assistant director of the Associated Artists. He was later assigned by the Japanese to be a censor for the stage and for the Taliba newspaper. He was also assigned second lieutenant in Straughn’s Guerrillas. Later, he became an editor for the Manila Sunday Chronicle Magazine, and a producer-director for the Filipino Players Guild in 1958 to 1968.
In the 1950’s, he started taking part in art shows both in the Philippines and abroad. He participated in exhibitions in Washington, New York, Sao Paolo Biennial, and Tokyo.
Ocampo divided his years as an artist into stages:

1929 to 1934: Aping Amorsolo Period – He tried to paint like Amorsolo, but he failed since, he says, nobody could paint like Amorsolo successfully except Amorsolo himself.

1939 to 1945: Proletarian Period- Here he began to paint like H.R. Ocampo. During this period his paintings were of poverty-stricken humanity,driftwood of the ebbing tide of war.

1945 to 1963: Transitional Period- Non objective painting became his main interest. His figures and natural objects became simplified. He eliminated details of the human anatomy, disregarded perspective, and his forms became increasingly distorted. His objectives was to flatten planes and achieve unity of composition and design through a combination of hues,tonal values and textures. The painting became a living,organic,logical unit.

1963 to1968: Mutants Period- A film entitled “The Beginning of the End” started him painting symbols of mutants,fantasies on the havoc wrought by nuclear warfare.

1968 to Present (1979): Visual Melody Period: Now what he does is to create pure painting, something akin to chamber music. One must note also his recent reawakened interest in watercolor.

For an artist emotionally inspired as he is, H.R. Ocampo exhibits paradoxical orderliness in his method of painting. He keeps his brushes and paint tubes in very orderly rows, like military formations, and indicates on the tubes their prices and the dates when he bought and also to keep track of the changes in their prices. In fact, if you ask him to whom he sold a painting as far back as the 1940s, he can tell you the purchaser and the sale price, for he keeps a record of this information.

H. R. Ocampo passed away in Caloocan City on December 28, 1978.
His major works include:
• 1948 – Calvary
• 1961 – Mother and Child
• 1967 – Easter Sunday
• 1968 – Genesis, his acknowledged masterpiece
Achievements:
• 1948 – 6th Prize, Art Association of the Philippines, for Nude with Candle and Flower
• 1949 – 3rd Prize, Manila Club Art Exhibition, for Angel’s Kiss
• 1950 – 1st Prize, Art Association of the Philippines, for Arabesque
• 1950 – 2nd Prize, Art Association of the Philippines, for Man and Carabao
• 1951 – 1st Prize and Special Award, Art Association of the Philippines, for Ancestors
• 1951 – Honorable Mention, Art Association of the Philippines, for Intramuros
• 1954 – 3rd Prize, Art Association of the Philippines, for 53-E
• 1965 – Republic Cultural Award
• 1955 – Honorable Mention, Art Association of the Philippines, for 54-A
• 1958 – 2nd Prize and Purchase Prize, Art Association of the Philippines, for Nativity
• 1969 – 1st Prize, Art Association of the Philippines, for Circle
• 1969 – Patnubay ng Sining at Kalinangan Award, from the City of Manila
• 1976 – Diwa ng Lahi Award, from the City of Manila
• 1979 – Gawad CCP para sa Sining Award, from the Cultural Center of the Philippines

HERNANDO R. OCAMPO, NATIONAL ARTIST

• All acknowledge him to be one of the country’s few major artists.
• In his last effort, he won the first prize in the AAP Twenty-Second Annual Exhibition in 1969 with “Circe”.
• His second one-man show celebrating his 65th birthday held in September 1976 at ABC Galleries was a major art event. That was when he showed 65 water colors, a reawakened interest which he continues to pursue side by side with painting in acrylic and oil.
• Aside from the First Republic Cultural Award in Painting in 1954, the following honors have been bestowed on him: “Patnubay ng Sining” Araw ng Maynila Award, 1969; “Diwa ng Lahi” highest cultural award, Araw ng Maynila, 1976; “Outstanding Citizen Award”, Caloocan City, 1977.
• Founded “Taza de Oro Group”, better known as the Saturday Group.
• Consultant for: Board for Art Consultants, Central Bank of the Philippines, 1975-1977; Board for Art Consultants, National Media Production Center, since 1974; Marketing and Advertising Consultant, La Tondeña, Inc., since 1969.
• Appropriately enough, the Cultural Center of the Philippines counts among its treasures one of his major works. His painting entitled “Simula” or “Genesis” was blown up for the curtain of the Center’s theatre for the Performing Arts by the tapestry weavers of Kyoto,Japan. Considering the originality and genuinely Filipino character of his art, the genesis of which was his burden and joy alone, one is struck by the symbolism in the fact that “Genesis” is a beautiful work which, its creator says, represents the full flowering of his Visual Melody Period. It is a “pure-painting” , and yet it manages to convey a statement on the act of creation, the bright yellow flame in the center of the curtain seeming to attract the spectrum of colors surrounding it to fuse them into one pure Filipino image art.

OCAMPO AS ARTIST AND FILIPINO

(H.R. Ocampo: The Artist as Filipino by Angel G. De Jesus)

What makes Hernando R. Ocampo so special?

The answer is that nobody can question his credentials. He is one of the two real pioneers of the Philippine modernist movement, the other being National Artist Victorio C. Edades. It can be truly said that it was he who, by his courageous example, opened new frontiers for such contemporaries as Vicente S. Manansala, Cesar F. Legaspi, Romeo V. Tabuena, Ramon A. Estella and Victor Oteyza, encouraging them to seek new meanings and search for self-fulfillment. Magtanggul Asa was right when he said that “Victorio C. Edades opened the doors of modern art in the Philippines, Hernando R. Ocampo walked right in.” With the doors open, the musty conservatism of Philippine art was exorcised forever.

What makes Nanding so special is that he, who has created the most original Filipino paintings, is a self-educated local artist who has never been abroad and whose background in art comes merely from reading at books and magazines. From personal experience and his culling of books and magazines, he was able to evolve an art truly original and Filipino. Nanding’s abstract canvases capture the tropical lushness of our country, that unity of environment, sunlight, atmosphere, color, bones and sinews of our sun blessed land, in spite of the fact that he expresses himself in the language of abstraction. Critics unanimously agree he is the most original and the foremost exponent of the Filipino style. Emmanuel Torres, as far back as November 5, 1954, wrote the following in the Weekly Women’s Magazine:

“In spite of hostile opposition, Ocampo has for the last six yeas produced a substantial body of paintings which are the most daring and original in the Orient.”

Many foreigners who have seen Nanding’s abstract paintings have commented on their striking originality, adding that they had not yet seen anything quite like his abstractions. They identify his work as unmistakably Filipino, ascribing the national character to his unique, tropical colors.

SAMPLE WORKS

Artist / Hernando Ruiz Ocampo
Title / Harvest festival
Medium / Oil on Canvas
Size / 33.9 x 49.6 in. / 86 x 126 cm.
Year / 1971

Artist / Hernando Ruiz Ocampo
Title / Mutants-C
Medium / oil on canvas
Size / 34.3 x 50 in. / 87 x 127 cm.
Year / 1964 -

Homage to Tandang Sora

1977 Acrylic on Canvass

101.6 cm x 70.2 cm

Artist / Hernando Ruiz Ocampo
Title / Untitled
Medium / acrylic on canvas
Size / 37.4 x 37.4 in. / 95 x 95 cm.
Year / 1974 -

REFERENCES:

National Artist, Visual Art 1991,and One of the Thirteen Moderns

H.R. Ocampo: The Artist as Filipino by Angel G. De Jesus, 1979; Heritage Publishing