As it celebrates its 15th anniversary, Salcedo Auctions begins the 2025 auction calendar with a sterling line-up for its first major event, “The Well-Appointed Life.” It is a prestigious roster anchored by Fernando Zobel’s “Icaro I” from 1959, an exceedingly rare gem from the esteemed abstractionist, the first from a series that precedes the 1962 “Icaro” that was shown in Zobel’s recently concluded retrospective at the Ayala Museum and is in the museum’s permanent collection.
Equally rare are two works by Felix Resurreccion Hidalgo, which have been with his heirs for over a century. Veering away from the classical tendencies that defined his oeuvre, Hidalgo conveys the rustic charm of a provincial cottage in Interior de una Casa, a surprising work in an interior setting. Its warmth contrasts with the turn-of-the-century industrializing landscape of Village Brittany, which depicts the view from Hidalgo’s accommodations cast in blues and grays.
The works of Hidalgo and Zobel are in good company, with other star lots in the roster that include paintings by National Artists. That includes three vibrant works from the 1980s by Jose Joya, Orange Sonata (1989), Brick Fort (1983), and Morning Flight (1982), along with Ang Kiukok’s 1979 iteration of Crucifixion, H.R. Ocampo’s Revelation-E from 1978, Cesar Legaspi’s untitled piece from 1971, and several figurative paintings by Federico Aguilar Alcuaz spanning the years from 1976 to 1985.
Interestingly, the two works by BenCab, separated by 44 years, show how his art has evolved. For an untitled mixed-media work from 1970 (previously owned by British acting legend Glenda Jackson), the artist uses various materials—pen and ink, acrylic, graphite, collage, and possibly gravure techniques—which reveal his inventive and experimental approach during this period that art critics agree are among the highlights of his storied career. BenCab’s later muse makes an appearance at the auction with a 2014 work titled Behind Sabel, depicted with the dramatic folds and angular forms that characterize the series.
While Mauro Malang Santos is not a National Artist yet, his works listed for auction beg an assessment of his practice and argue for his inclusion in the revered pantheon of important Filipino artists. Several of his drawings reveal his discipline and skill, and how his paintings are connected to his work as a cartoonist.
Santos sees drawing as an exercise in dexterity and as the foundation for his paintings. Without formal training as a painter, he honed his skills through years of experimentation and relied on his instincts when creating his works. He experimented with various mediums before deciding on gouache and oil as the perfect material for his distinctive layering technique.
Santos eschews any messaging in his works except to exude the joy that he feels in expressing local motifs. His early barong-barongs—exemplified in this sale by a rare 1970 painting featured in the monograph “The Art of Malang as Filipino”—are expressed as sculptural forms in vibrant colors. When painting a favorite subject, women, he summons his primary muse, his mother, clad in a traditional terno with butterfly sleeves. He adds details to distinguish the women in his paintings, like the tattoos of one who otherwise would have exemplified the more traditional Filipinas of earlier works.
Santos has defined his own style, one that he has stuck with for most of his years as a painter. And through the redemptive power of colors, which he is a master of, he has expressed the brighter side of a national identity.
Presented with UnionBank Elite, ‘The Well-Appointed Life’ live and online auction will take place on Saturday, March 8, starting at 2 p.m. In-person preview runs up to March 7, at NEX Tower, 6786 Ayala Avenue, Makati City, from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. daily (including Sunday, closed Monday).
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