Vicente Silva Manansala was a Filipino cubist painter born in 1910 in Macabebe, Pampanga. He studied art at the University of the Philippines and abroad in Canada and France. Manansala is considered a pioneer of transparent cubism in the Philippines and was part of the modernist movement known as the Thirteen Moderns. His paintings portrayed everyday Filipino life in both rural and urban settings, blending folk and modern elements. Manansala received numerous awards and was named a National Artist of the Philippines in 1982, posthumously. He was greatly influential to generations of Filipino artists.

3. • He is the son of Perfecto Q.
Manansala and Engracia Silva. He
married Hermenegilda (Hilda) Diaz,
with whom he had one child. As a
newsboy and bootblack in
Intramuros, he expressed his early
creativity designing kites and making
charcoal sketches. At 15, he studied
under the turn-of-the-century
painter Ramon Peralta while doing
signboards for a painting shop.

4. • Vicente Silva Manansala (January 22,
1910 - August 22, 1981) was a Philippine
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 Ecole de Beaux
Arts in Banff and Montreal, Canada. In
1950, he received a nine-month
scholarship to study at the Ecole de Beaux
Arts in Paris by the French government.

5. • 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.

6. • 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 (Carabao).

7. • As a member of the Thirteen Moderns
and the neo-realists, he was at the
forefront of the modernist movement
in the country. With the issues of
national culture and identity in focus
after WWII his works were those of
the other early modernists which
reflected the social environment and
expressed the native sensibility. He
held his first one-person show at the
Manila Hotel in 1951.

8. • Manansala's vision of the city and
his fundamentally native Filipino
approach to his subjects would
influence numerous artists who
took up his folk themes within an
urban context. Among those who
show his influence are Mauro
Malang Santos, with his own
version of folk romanticism in
paintings which convey the
fragile,

9. • makeshift character of the 1950s,
and others from the University of
Santo Tomas where Manansala
taught for a time, such as Antonio
Austria, Angelito Antonio, and Mario
Parial. Like him, they draw their
inspiration from the folk, their
occupations and pleasures. He
influenced Manuel Baldemor, whose
roots are in Paete, Laguna, as well as
some Laguna lakeshore artists.

10. • His works distinguish him as the
pioneer of transparent cubism in
the country and one of the
prewar “Thirteen Moderns”.
Manansala immortalized
in his paintings the reality seen
by someone who lived to see the
ravages during and after the
Second World War.

11. • His images of postwar Manila’s urban
landscape included makeshift
shanties, women vendors, jeepneys,
beggars and cock fighters, and
depicted the search for national
identity after the war. All of them
turned into pulsating images through
cubism and his knack for using layers
and planes to make space explode
while staying true to the geometric
shapes of his subjects.

12. • At 15, he entered the preparatory school
of then leading scenographic painter
Ramon Peralta, where he learned to
draw while doing signboards for a
painting shop. He took courses at the
School of Fine Arts in UP while working
as billboard painter and then as
illustrator and layout artist for Philippine
Herald and Photo News – all this, while
doing hard labor on the side during the
construction of the Ipo Dam. He also
became part of Liwayway and Saturday
Evening News magazines years after.

13. • When the war broke out, most
of his works in his house in
Intramuros were not salvaged.
He moved his family to Cavite
and Pampanga. To support his
family, he worked as a
fisherman and did portraits in
exchange for palay or rice.

14. • Going back to the city after
the war, Manansala also
painted several historical
murals including the Stations
of the Cross for UP Diliman
Chapel, mural for Philippine
Heart Center, and the fresco
mural for the National Press
Club.

28. • Achievements:
• 1941 – 1st Prize, National Art
Exhibition, UST, for Pounding Rice
• 1950 – 1st Prize, Manila Grand Opera
House Exhibition, for Barong-Barong #1
• 1950 – 1st Prize, Art Association of the
Philippines First Annual Art Competition,
for Banaklaot
• 1953 – 2nd Prize, Art Association of the
Philippines, for Kahig (Scratch)
• 1955 – 2nd Prize, Art Association of the
Philippines, for Fish Vendors

29. • • 1955 – 3rd Prize, Art Association of
the Philippines, for Best-Served, Well-
Gained
• 1957 – Outstanding UP Alumnus
• 1962 – 2nd Prize, Art Association of
the Philippines, for Give Us This Day
• 1962 – Best in Show, Art Association
of the Philippines, for Give Us This Day
• 1963 – Republic Cultural Heritage
Award
• 1970 – Patnubay ng Sining at
Kalinangan Award, from the City of
Manila

30. • • 1955 – 3rd Prize, Art Association of the
Philippines, for Best-Served, Well-Gained
• 1957 – Outstanding UP Alumnus
• 1962 – 2nd Prize, Art Association of the
Philippines, for Give Us This Day
• 1962 – Best in Show, Art Association of
the Philippines, for Give Us This Day
• 1963 – Republic Cultural Heritage
Award
• 1970 – Patnubay ng Sining at
Kalinangan Award, from the City of
Manila

31. • Well-Gained, 1955; second prize,
Give Us This Day, 1962; and best
in show, Give Us This Day, 1962.
He received the Republic Cultural
Heritage Award in 1963. He also
received the Patnubay ng Sining
at Kalinangan Award from the
City of Manila in 1970 He was
proclaimed National Artist in
Painting in 1982.

32. • 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 Academy of
Arts, the Lopez Memorial Museum
(Manila), the Philippine Center (New York
City) and the Singapore Art Museum are
among the public collections holding work
by Vicente Manansala. Manansala died in
Makati in 1981 and proclaimed NATIONAL
ARTIST OF THE PHILIPPINES. (posthumous)

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34. THE END