Vicente Manansala

Who was Vicente Manansala?

Vicente Silva Manansala was a Filipino cubist painter and illustrator.

Manansala was born in Macabebe, Pampanga. From 1926 to 1930, he studied at the U.P. School of Fine Arts. In 1949, Manansala received a six-month grant by UNESCO to study at the École des Beaux-Arts in Banff and Montreal, Canada. In 1950, he received a nine-month scholarship to study at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris by the French government.

Manansala's canvases were described as masterpieces that brought the cultures of the barrio and the city together. His Madonna of the Slums is a portrayal of a mother and child from the countryside who became urban shanty residents once in the city. In his Jeepneys, Manansala combined the elements of provincial folk culture with the congestion issues of the city.

Manansala developed transparent cubism, wherein the "delicate tones, shapes, and patterns of figure and environment are masterfully superimposed". A fine example of Manansala using this "transparent and translucent" technique is his composition, Kalabaw.

Vicente Manansala, a National Artist of the Philippines in Visual Arts, was a direct influence to his fellow Filipino neo-realists: Malang, Angelito Antonio, Norma Belleza and Baldemor. The Honolulu Museum of Art, the Lopez Memorial Museum, the Philippine Center, the Singapore Art Museum and Holy Angel University are among the public collections holding work by Vicente Manansala. Holy Angel University recently opened a section of its museum called The Vicente Manansala Collection, holding most of the estate left by the artist.