Planting Rice
Planting Rice
Winnowing Rice. 1936. Oil on board. 19 1/2 " x 25 1/2.. Signed and dated, lower left. Replacement gold leaf frame. This work shows an ideal summer harvest day. The bright sunshine contrasts with the bright red in the woman's apron. The colors are fresh and vivid
Coming In From The Fields. 1939. Oil on canvas laid down on board. 9 3/8 x 13 15/16. 1939. Oil on canvas laid down on board. 9 3/8 x 13 15/16. Signed and dated, lower left. Painted at one of the most important times of Amorsolo's career, Sylvia Amorsolo-Lazo considered this is a very rare work that was probably done in the province to be used as the basis of a larger painting. She feels this type work is a true "original" since it was created prior to any additional works of the same subject. She also stated that she has never seen this subject before. In her opinion, this painting is a "gem." Signed and dated, lower left. Condition is excellent.
Planting Rice. 1947. Oil on canvas. 16 x 20. Signed, dated and annotated "Manila" lower right. Original Amorsolo frame. The focus of the painting is the figures in the foreground. The bright foreground colors contrast with the grey, cloudy sky.
Sunset. 1950. Oil on canvas. 15 1/2 x 19 1/2 (frame 20 x 24). Signed and dated, lower left. Original Amorsolo frame. This is a typical country scene in Bulacan province, where the artist liked to sketch. The glowing, dramatic colors evoke the vivid Philippine tropical sunsets.
Lavendera (Woman Bathing). 1950. Oil on canvas. 13 X 16 1/2. Original Amorsolo frame. Signed and dated, lower right. Amorsolo's bathers represent the epitome of Philippine beauty. This painting shows the woman modestly draped while she is washing clothes in a stream.
Planting Rice. 1951. Oil on canvas. 24 x 34. Signed and dated, lower right. Original Amorsolo frame. Some cracqueleur in the trees. Behind the workers, a farmer with a carabao ploughs. In the background is a cluster of nipa huts. The central grouping of lush trees and hills provides an idyllic setting for the workers
Llacer Planting (Planting Rice). 1952. Oil on canvas. 16 x 21 (frame 21 1/4 x 26 3/8).
Winnowing Rice. 1936. Oil on board. 19 1/2 " x 25 1/2 (frame 24 1/2" X 30 1/2). Signed and dated, lower left. Replacement gold leaf frame. This work shows an ideal summer harvest day. The bright sunshine contrasts with the bright red in the woman's apron. The colors are fresh and vivid and the landscape idyllic. According to Sylvia Amorsolo-Lazo, this is an early painting that shows the brush strokes of the artist at the height of his career.
The workers are tossing rice in the air so that the chaff separates from the rice and blows away. The rice can be seen in the white mounds on the left.
Provenance: The Winnowers was commissioned in 1936 as an anniversary gift from Mr. Louis Weinzheimer to his wife. Louis was part owner of the Calambe Sugar Estates in Canlubang and also overseer of Pampanga Sugar in Del Carmen.
Early in 1941 Louis retired and returned to the United States, bringing that painting and other Amorsolos with him. His son, Walter, and his family remained in the Philippines, but were also preparing to return in anticipation of a possible war. The Japanese invaded days before their ship was due to sail and they were ultimately interred in Santo Tomas, a university in Manila where they remained throughout the war.
At approximately the same time, the owner's uncle, James Needham, was a mining engineer in northern Luzon with his wife Edda Bailey Needham. When the invasion occurred my aunt and uncle also were unable to escape and joined a band of guerrillas who successfully avoided capture for over 2 years.
When they were finally captured, James was taken away as a military prisoner and never seen again. Edda was also interred in Santo Tomas with other civilian noncombatants. There a close friendship developed between Edda and the Weinzheimers that lasted until Edda's death in the late 1980's.
During a reunion with the Weinzheimer's in California after the war, Edda bought "The Winnowers" from Louis and brought it to the coast of Maine where it has been ever since. It was willed to the present owner upon Edda's death and has brought him years of enjoyment, both with the viewing and and remembering of the many tales it evoked from his aunt of her years in the Philippines.
This painting is accompanied by a certificate of authenticity by Sylvia Amorsolo-Lazo, the artist's daughter.
The following paragraphs have been extracted from The National Artists of the Philippines (Volume One) , which was co-published by the Cultural Center of the Philippines and Anvil Publishing. Inc
This is a highly informative and interesting book. Please visit the above link in order to find out where it may be purchased.
On page 16:
Provincial Scenery
Though born a Malineno, of Malineno parents, young Amorsolo grew up amid the provincial scenery that recurs in his paintings. He was born on May 30, 1892, in the Manila arrabal of Paco, on classic Calle Herran. His father was a book-keeper, his mother was a first cousin of Don Fabian de la Rosa, the painter. When Fernando was only seven months old, the family moved to Camarines Norte, where his father kept the books for two abaca farms.
"Even as a child," say's the Maestro, "I was already drawing. At times my father became angry with me because I drew and drew on everything. Once, a brother-in-law gave us children a pad of paper and colored pencils but it was I who used them up. I would go to the wharfs and sketch the ships. My mother collected my sketches and sent them to her cousin, Don Fabian [de la Rosa.]"
The boy was only around four years old when the Revolution broke out.
The Amorsolo's were living in Daet when the Americans occupied Bicolandia. "The revolucianos had fled and then it was announced that the Americans were going to land. The soldiers entered quietly, no fighting and the Americans were good..."
On pages 18 and 19:
Trips Abroad
...Late [in] 1917, he was summoned by Don Enrique Zobel, who offered to send him abroad for a year...
...He stayed seven months in Madrid, studying at the Escuela de San Fernando, boarding in a pension, sketching at the museums. Spanish art was highly conservative but the instruction at the San Fernando was expert and thorough. "I learned a lot about color, how to use it and what materials to use." He sketched on the streets of Madrid - sidewalk book stalls, street ragamuffins - and it may be that in the quality of the Spanish sun, he learned the difference in intensity of [the] Philippine sunlight...
...The bohemian life of art students in Madrid did not draw him. "I was shy, I had no money - at hindi ako mahilig sa sayawan at carnival (besides, I was not fond of dancing and the carnival.") He found that Luna was still remembered in Spain. One man who saw him painting in a museum asked if he was Cuban and when told that Amorsolo was a Filipino, [he] exclaimed, "Oh, a countryman of Juan Luna!" Amorsolo did not travel much outside of Madrid: "Nawili ako sa pagpipinta (I was occupied with painting.") The pastels and oils he did in Madrid, he was later to sell in New Your, where he spent the winter of his year abroad...
On pages 20 and 21:
Alone as Sensualist
One can confidently predict that Fernando Amorsolo will never end up [as] a mere footnote in our art, because that staying power of his comes from a magnificent vitality that he poured into everything he did, that suffuses even his most vulgar work. The light for which he is famous is the rapture of a sensualist utterly in love with the earth, with the Philippine sun, yes but only because it was so accurate an expression of his own exuberance...
...In the Hilton show, it's the small nudes that transfix the eye: a girl seen from behind, her shapely buttocks shimmering; a girl bending over her knees; a girl [waking up?] naked in bed, from what was surely a night of love, so sensuous is the room climate. In several of the historical and tribal oils, the whole scene seems to have been composed around some epiphany of female flesh: a bared breast or the curve of a haunch. In Amorsolo, as in Rubens, there's a luxuriance in the bodies of women and a frank delight in them. But this delight in aliveness is not confined to flesh; it's the "blinding brilliance" in his landscapes, where every leaf, every blade of grass and the light itself throb with the man's love, a man who brims [with] the joy of life...
SOURCE:http://www.allinsongallery.com/amorsolo/index.html
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