JULIUS LEENON: February 2008

Below is a painting of Ang Kiukok that I acquired in 1968. Ang Kiukok is one of the great Philippine National Artists for Visual Arts. Please check links and article below about Ang Kiukok.

For those who are interested to buy the art work please contact me.

Untitled, Abstract painting
(water color and pastel)

30 x 21 inches

National Artist Ang Kiukok, 74

The arts and culture community mourns the passing of acclaimed National Artist for Visual Arts Ang Kiukok, 74, who succumbed to a lingering illness Monday evening (May 9, 2005) at the St. Luke¹s Medical Center in Quezon City.

Born to immigrant Chinese parents Vicente Ang and Chin Lim, Kiukok was one of the most vital and dynamic figures who emerged during the 60s and continued to make an impact in the art scene until the time of his death.

The National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA) described Kiukok‹named national artist in 2001‹as one of those who came at the heels of the pioneering modernists during that decade, and blazed a formal and iconographic path of his own through expressionistic works of high visual impact and compelling meaning.

³In the 70s, he crystallized in vivid, cubistic figures the terror and angst of the times. Shaped in the furnace of the political turmoil of those times, Ang Kiukok pursued an expression imbued with nationalist fervor and sociological agenda, said NCCA Executive Director and PA on Culture Cecile Guidote Alvarez, who, together with husband former Senator Heherson T. Alvarez were politically-prosecuted and fought the dictatorship during Martial Law.

Some of Kiukok's works include: Geometric Landscape (1969); Pieta, which won for him the bronze medal in the 1st International Art Exhibition held in Saigon (1962); and the Seated Figure (1979), auctioned at Sotheby's in Singapore.

His works can be found in many major art collections, among them the Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP), National Historical Museum of Taipei, and the National Museum in Singapore.

He was regarded as a major force in the national arts scene and the pre-eminent cultural star of the country's community of Filipino-Chinese (Tsinoys). He also crossed national boundaries, representing the Philippines in many Asian international art exhibitions from Saigon to Tokyo to Taipei, Kuala Lumpur and Singapore.

According to the book Gawad Pambansang Alagad ng Sining 2001, since the 1990s, his work has become a regular feature in the auction houses of Sotheby's and Christie's International in Singapore, as much sought after as that of another Filipino at the auction block: Fernando C. Amorsolo.

He received the Outstanding Overseas Chinese Award in 1961 and the 1976 Araw ng Maynila Award. (source: May 11, 2005, NCCA Press Release)