Month: March 2026
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Women Pioneers of Philippine Art
In celebration of International Women’s Day, allow me to introduce three pioneering and remarkable women in Philippine Art. By the late 19th century, women began carving their place in formal art education led by the trailblazing Pelagia Mendoza y Gotianquin (1867-1939). Born in Pateros, Mendoza grew up demonstrating exceptional talent in artistic pursuits such as…
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Lozano’s Letras y Figuras in the FDR Museum for Mapping Philippine Material Culture (SOAS)
While researching visual representations of port cities, I encountered an unexpected object at the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum: a nineteenth-century letras y figuras painting by the Manila artist José Honorato Lozano (1815/1821–1885). The Roosevelt Library—best known for presidential papers, wartime correspondence, and family memorabilia—is not the first place art historians would think…
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A Filipino painter you should know: Eduardo Arandia Salgado
The following article expands the original posted here: https://libguides.nybg.org/c.php?g=1465030 Eduardo Arandia Salgado (1910–1987) was a Filipino painter and botanical illustrator born in Manila. He studied painting at the University of the Philippines, completing advanced courses between 1931 and 1932 under the direction of Fabian de la Rosa and Fernando Amorsolo. Trained in a classical style,…
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Antonio Garcia Llamas (1912–1999)
Antonio Garcia y Llamas (1912–1999) was a Filipino painter, muralist, and teacher who worked between Manila, Jakarta, and Madrid. Little is written about Garcia but his work aligns with the Philippine academic tradition in twentieth-century Philippine painting. He was born in Manila on 16 May 1912 and received his early education at the Colegio de…
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Talismanic Case with Qurʾanic Prayer Scroll (Iran, 19th Century)
This nineteenth-century Iranian amulet consists of a metal case and a tightly rolled Qurʾānic prayer scroll preserved inside it (National Museum of Asian Art, Accession S2018.6a–c). The container, made of silver plated over a copper alloy, measures approximately 1.9 × 7.6 × 1.5 cm and has a six-sided body with rounded ends. One end opens…
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Intellectual and Social Currents in the Establishment of the Academia de Dibujo y Pintura (1821–1834) published in Sojourn
I’m pleased to announce the publication of my article in Sojourn: Journal of Social Issues in Southeast Asia: Geronimo Cristobal, “Intellectual and Social Currents in the Establishment of the Academia de Dibujo y Pintura (1821–1834),” Sojourn: Journal of Social Issues in Southeast Asia 41, no. 1 (2026): 1–45.https://doi.org/10.1355/sj41-1a The article revisits the origins of the…
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Jacques Derrida’s La vérité en peinture (Flammarion 1978)
Jacques Derrida’s La vérité en peinture (The Truth in Painting), published by Flammarion in 1978, gathers a set of essays that rethink the relation between philosophy and the visual arts. The title, borrowed from a remark by Paul Cézanne, signals the provocation at the heart of the book: if painting is said to bear or…
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Metro Romance (dir. Taylor Wong, 1984)
Carlotta Films is slated to re-release Behind the Yellow Line (1984) on Blu-ray under the title Metro Romance in April 2026. Directed by Taylor Wong, the film (originally titled 緣份, Yuan Fen, “Fate”) is a light romantic comedy set on Hong Kong’s newly modernized MTR. The new edition restores a modest but revealing mid-1980s hit.…
Geronimo Cristobal 