ANITA MAGSAYSAY-HO (Filipino, 1914-2012)

Anita Magsaysay-Ho is widely acknowledged as the leading female painter in modern Philippine art. During her youth, she studied under the illustrious Fernando Amorsolo, master of the romantic realist tradition, and her earliest works reflect this tutelage of warm pastoralism and faithful portraiture. However it was during her experimentations with modernism during the 1950s that Magsaysay-Ho found her true artistic calling, blending localised genre scenes with an almost geometrical sense of modern figuration.

Women at the Market is painted with egg tempera on board, a medium used early in the artist's career. The medium enabled her work to achieve a delicate quality due to the transparency of the medium and also the resulting smooth finish that served to accentuate her experimentations with the Modernist style of cubism to create depth in her compositions by employing the use of flat planes.

Three Boys at Play is a work that emphasizes the exuberance of youth through the vibrant colours used to depict the boy's clothes. Isolated against a brown background, Magsaysay-Ho draws our attention to the energy and dynamic interaction between the young boys.