33. Luck's On Me: AN ELIAS LAXA THRIFT SHOP FIND

Monte de Piedad, that narrow street cutting through Aurora Boulevard, is home to a junkyard that offers a lot of exciting finds and other possibilities for a collector. It is run by Jun Macaro, a big, soft spoken man, who has been quietly gaining a reputation as an up-and-coming dealer of quality and affordable collectibles. My last visit yielded a beautiful Santo Sepulcro in antique ivory. A month later, I decided to drop by again and check out his warehouse of odds and ends.

I came in after lunch, and he was not quite ready for my unannounced visit, but he opened his stockroom anyway, that was full to the brim with all sorts of vintage items. Indeed, his place was a scrounger's delight!

I surveyed the place and began systematically going through the items piled up in his shop. The first one was a very desirable book on Philippine sacred art, now out of print--Prusisyon. Extant copies now are priced at Php2,500 and up--if you can find one. So, into my shopping bag this book went, for just 800 pesos.

 But there was more. A small painting of a nipa hut lay near the book--and the dealer was quick to pint out that it was a vinate work of famous artist named "Laya". Of course, he was half-correct. One look at the signature, and I knew this was the work of an important Kapampangan artist named Elia Laxa.

 He signed his work by scracthing his name using the wooden tip of his paintbrush--a trademark signature that appears in all his works. This particular painting--no more than 8 x 10 inches dates from 1972.

The river town of Guagua is not without its own homegrown artists who, though not as publicized and as well-known as their counterparts, command attention from patrons in the art circle. The most successful perhaps is the artist Elias Laxa, whose seaside and landscapes have come to be recognized as valuable vignettes of Philippine scenes.

Laxa was born in 1904 in the fishing barrio called Banka in Guagua, Pampanga. A the age of 16, he left for Manila, but it was only at the relatively advance age of 25 that he enrolled at the U.P. College of Fine Arts. There, he studied under Fernando Amorsolo and graduated in 1933. Like what they say about starving artists, Laxa took on odd jobs, including sign painting for Escolta shops. He plunged into serious painting only after the War, supporting himself by giving private art lessons. An early supporter was a kabalen—Emilio Aguilar “Abe” Cruz, the artist-writer from Magalang. He eventually settled in Hawaii with his family, who also dabbled in arts.

Lots of luck and a little bit of haggling,  and Laxa was mine to keep. Not bad for one afternoon of effortless hunting along Cubao's street of trash and treasures.

32. BIG ON BEN: Discovering Ben Alano's Art in Intramuros

OFFERING. By Ben Alano. 22 x 28, oil on canvas. Signed and dated 1954.

Mabini St. was the bastion of commercial and tourist art beginning in the 50s thru the 60s and 70s. Back then, art aficionados turned their noses down at the output of the artists that congregated and painted there, dismissing the hackneyed Filipiniana themes, his ‘n hers ethnic portraits, trite Pacific landscapes and nudie velvet paintings that appealed to tourists in search of souvenir art.

 BALIK-TANAW EXHIBIT INVITATION. held at the Jose P. Rizal Heritage Center, Chicago, Illinois. Curated by Victor Velasco. (Many thanks, Victor, for these materials)

It is only now that collectors and critics are taking a second look at these artworks and the painters that created them, finally acknowledging their significance and their place in the development of Philippine art history. In June this year, Filipino expatriate Victor Velasco assembled Filipiniana paintings found in the U.S. in a representational exhibit in Chicago entitled “Balik-Tanaw: Philippine Images Beyond Nostalgia” . The exhibit featured the paintings of Mabini artists and others who worked in the same style like Serafin Serna, Ceferino V. Lopez, Crispin Agno and Isidro Ancheta.

 ISLAND GIRL, Ben Alano painting from the Balik-Tanaw Exhibit. 17 x 22, oil on canvas. Dated 1962.

The small collection speaks volumes about the prevailing artistic tastes of Americans in the 50s and 60s, their penchant for the exotic and the lure of the tropics that they imagined a world away--idyllic wind-swept landscapes, brilliant sunsets and mocha-skinned maidens.

One of the more notable names from this Mabini circle was Benjamin P. Alano or simply Ben Alano, (b.1920/d. 1991), who set up and maintained an atelier in Ermita for over 20 years, becoming a prolific producer of Philippine genre paintings. Born in Taguig, he graduated from the U.P. College of Fine Arts in 1948, and had his first exhibit a year later with the Philippine Arts Guild. Ben also held art classes for American military families in Cavite. His last work was the San Lorenzo Ruiz mural at the EDSA shrine, but he is better known today for his paintings done in the realist tradition with every conceivable Philippine themes as subjects, rendered on canvas, boards and even on velvet. The Jorge Vargas Collection at the University of the Philippines includes a few early Alano pieces and his name is cited in leading Philippine art books.

 INTERNATIONAL ONLINE AUCTION, features this small Ben Alano seascape with an estimated value of over $1,000..

Of late, he is being rediscovered by online art auctions—including ebay. Even the art section of classified ads sometimes include an Alano work in the listings. Most of the pieces available are haphazardly priced, resulting in pricing extremes. For example, currently available on a local ad postings are four large Alano paintings, mostly nudes on canvass, tagged at an astounding half a million pesos. But another local ad had an Alano velvet painting for just 11K. Still another online auction put a rare medium-sized Alano seascape in the$1,000 -$1,250 range.

 A PAIR OF ALANO NUDES. Offered online by a local dealer. Source: sulit.com.ph

On the other hand, an ebay seller had a modest $175 starting bid on an Alano velvet painting of a “Mananahi”, eventually selling for a little over $200. I have always been a big Ben Alano fan but the vagaries of pricing were a major turn-off. Besides, for some reason, despite the artist’s prodigious output, his paintings were getting harder to find. So I simply gave up my search.

 One weekend however, I decided to explore Cubao, my favorite hunting ground for old and vintage stuff—I often do not know what that is unless I see it. But after 20 minutes, I found nothing of interest and decided to go to Intramuros instead to look for books. Little did I know that this unplanned trip would lead me to an Alano painting in a native craft store that had a relatively unknown art gallery upstairs.

 It was a long cab ride from Cubao to Intramuros with a brief stopover at my Makati pad. As soon as I dropped off at El Almanacer Bldg., I went straight to go up the Tradewinds Book Store, through the ground floor, which housed Silahis Arts and Crafts. But on my way up,a large work (22 x 28) in canvas caught my eye. It was a painting from Galeria de las Islas, the gallery on the top floor, taken down to serve as an accent for the bare ground floor wall.

 The painting was aptly entitled, “Offering” and the subject was typical Mabini’s. It featured an ethnic type, a seated, barebreasted woman, giving a colorful garland of flowers to a wooden idol. A brass vessel was by her side. The strokes are meticulous, the shadowing of colors very moody.

The sales attendant told me it was an Alano, but I could barely make out the artist’s signature, painted on the lower right hand corner of the piece. It became only visible after I was handed a magnifying glass, which also revealed the date of its creation: 1954.

What was even more surprising was the price tag, which, I thought was quite reasonable for its size and age.Thank God for plastic money! (no surcharge, either!) I even managed to haggle down the price a bit, just a few hundreds more from the original gallery acquisition price.

By the time the afternoon was over, I had the painting bubble-wrapped and ready to go. Look what a side trip to Intramuros can do. It led me to my own Ben Alano, at long last.

(12 October 2009)