Ernest Hemingway, one of my all-time favorite writers! Happy 114th birthday!

Let us remember and honor the great novelist and journalist, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, one of my all-time favorite writers---Ernest Hemingway---today on his 114th birth anniversary.

Image of Hemingway below, sourced from guardian.co.uk



Ernest Miller Hemingway (July 21, 1899 – July 2, 1961) was an outstanding American author and journalist. Hemingway produced most of his work between the mid-1920s and the mid-1950s, and won the Nobel Prize in 1954.

This image below of the 1954 cover of Time magazine on Hemingway, sourced from time.com



I admire Hemingway's powerful yet understated, elegant yet economic and clean literary writing style as well as his robust, adventurous life!


Image below of Hemingway in his youth, sourced from en.wikipedia.org





Hemingway published seven novels, six short story collections, and two non-fiction works.

Some of Hemingway's works:

Indian Camp (1926)

The Sun Also Rises (1926)

A Farewell to Arms (1929)

"The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber" (1935)

For Whom the Bell Tolls (1940)

The Old Man and the Sea (1951)

A Moveable Feast (1964, posthumous)

True at First Light (1999)

Image below of Hemingway's novel For Whom The Bell Tolls, sourced from washingtonpost.com

I had recently bought a private resort in Pansol, Laguna from the Collantes family, renamed it Hemingway Eco-Resort, and I'm now renovating this garden-style and tropical-inspired private resort as my humble way of honoring this outstanding and great writer.


Hemingway image below, sourced from gepl.org

Iggy Rodriguez oil painting recently sold at Salcedo Auctions in the Philippines

On June 29, 2013, Saturday afternoon---via telephone bids because I was at a business meeting in another part of Metro Manila---I had recently bought this oil painting of talented and award-winning artist Raoul Ignacio "Iggy" Rodriguez from the Salcedo Auctions in Makati City, the Philippines. The seller originally bought it from his first solo art exhibit entitled "KIMI-IMIK" from November 10 to 30, 2009 at Blanc Compound in Mandaluyong City, Metro Manila.

I remember I was invited to the opening of that exhibit by businessman and art collector Jonathan Que, and that was the particular work that I liked the most in the entire exhibit but it was already sold. So when this painting "Hindi Laging Ganito" came up for resale this year, I made sure that I should buy it, not only because I admire the talented painter and 2009 CCP Thirteen Artists Awardee Iggy Rodriguez, but I am very impressed by that intriguing, thought-provoking, powerful, defiant, idealistic yet still hopeful masterpiece.

Without telling him that I had bought it, I texted him that it was sold in the auction, the artist texted back me that it is one of his favorite works and which he also used as image for protest rallies of activist groups in Metro Manila.


"Hindi Laging Ganito," oil on canvas, Photo courtesy of Blanc Compound



Joel Vega, based in Nijmegen, the Netherlands, wrote in his "18th Moon" blog wrote this essay on the first solo art exhibit of Iggy Rodriguez, here are excepts:

Not only is Rodriguez in my artist-to-watch list after seeing, on-line, some of his earlier pen-and-ink works, but also the fact that it is his first solo (co-produced with Slash/Art Artist Initiatives) in a mainstream art venue.

Kimi is “timid” in Filipino, a trait often attributed by Western observers to many Filipinos. Whether the observation is correct or not, assertiveness is a social trait determined by one’s cultural genes in the Philippines where the politics of class, stature and money dominates or is the red line that crosses many social narratives. In Rodriguez’s chosen title the flipside of “Kimi” is “Imik” which in Filipino means “to speak out.” Not exactly a palindrome, the show’s title is a clever twist on the palindrome. More intriguing is the implicit suggestion: is the Filipino’s ‘timidity-assertiveness’ actually a Janus-face attribute?

Three works in Rodriguez’s Blanc show engage my attention... “Hindi Laging Ganito,” (Not Always Like This) is a sharp commentary on capitalism, where the fruits of a capitalistic society is literally rooted or made on the bent backs of the working class. Rodriquez’s burnt reds and frenetic lines and brush strokes eloquently convey this urgent message of social inequality, a powerful work depicting the ‘powerless.’ 

In socially engaged art it is easy to slide into pamphletry and sloganeering and the pitfalls are many even for the skilled artist. And, perhaps, for many Filipinos, the art of speaking out remains a skill that has yet to be fully mastered and expressed particularly in the face of blatant corruption shown by those who are in power. Thus, the posited query: which part of the Janus-face should the Filipino show in these dog days of  rampant power abuse? 

In this debut solo show, and among his peers, Rodriguez has shown that an artist can eloquently speak out on the country’s ills without straying from or abandoning his own artistic vision.   

In his foreword to the Blanc exhibit, the Filipino social-realist writer Jun Cruz Reyes wrote that Rodriguez obviously still has a lot to say on the social ills that continue to plague Philippine society, adding that it would be a fitting gesture if the art world open the gates to welcome this young artist.

Image below of the artist, sourced from bulatlat.com

Private resort in hotspring capital Pansol, Philippines named after great romantic poet from Chile

Neruda Resort in Pansol honors world’s greatest poet of the 20th century

            Just a little over half an hour from Makati and below the slopes of Mount Makiling in the Philippines' hotspring capital of Pansol in Calamba City, Laguna province, a new oasis for leisure has recently opened---a private resort with two swimming pools, kitchen, barbecue grill, videoke, air-conditioned rooms good for 30 people---with Neruda Hotspring Resort at address 724 Natalie Street, Norville Subdivision, Purok 5, Pansol (very near and on the way to La Vista Pansol).

            Named in honor of great Chilean poet, writer, diplomat, Nobel Prize winner and statesman Pablo Neruda whom Colombian writer Gabriel Garcia Marquez called “the greatest poet of the 20th century in any language”, Neruda Hotspring Resort is an elegant private resort with two swimming pools, air-conditioned rooms good for over 30 people, modern karaoke and sound system, kitchen and barbecue grille, and a social hall or seminar place. It is also the only resort in Laguna with a free library of books, mostly on poetry.

           The natural mineral-rich hotspring water pools have medicinal or therapeutic benefits to health, like lower blood pressure, eliminate toxins, help better sleep, improve joint and muscle mobility.

Now popular for summer outings, Neruda Resort Pansol is also ideal for romance like dates, a private wedding celebration or even for the most unforgettable wedding proposal.  Poets, writers, artists and teachers will be given special discounted rates, just go to the Neruda Hotspring Resort Facebook page  https://www.facebook.com/pages/Neruda-Hotspring-Resort/118129861706136?ref=ts&fref=ts. Call or text Rose 09228901892 or Grace 09255877878 or email gh_realty@yahoo.com for inquiries, reservations and special discounted rates.

Below is an old photo of poet Pablo Neruda in is youth

  

Poet, diplomat and activist politician Pablo Neruda in his youth and latter years

Heartwarming tales of books looted by Nazis from Jews, being returned or compensated for.

Nazi-Looted Books Spell Decades of Labor for Libraries

By Catherine Hickley - Apr 8, 2013 7:00 AM GMT+0800

Arthur Goldschmidt, a Leipzig dealer in animal feed and an exporter to South America, was more passionate about books than business. His private collection numbered 40,000 carefully indexed volumes and he engaged a librarian to take care of it.

After the Nazis seized power in 1933, Goldschmidt was persecuted as a Jew; his assets were liquidated and his company confiscated. For survival, he sold his treasured collection of 2,000 almanacs -- spanning three centuries -- for a pittance to the Goethe and Schiller Archive in Weimar. He fled in 1938.

Enlarge image

Tanzenberg Monastery

Austrian National Library, Vienna (ONB/Wien SG VIII 1 1945.09.07) via Bloomberg

British troops examine a collection of books, mostly looted from Jewish owners, at a monastery that the Nazis planned to use for an elite university in Tanzenberg in 1945.

 

British troops examine a collection of books, mostly looted from Jewish owners, at a monastery that the Nazis planned to use for an elite university in Tanzenberg in 1945. Source: Austrian National Library, Vienna (ONB/Wien SG VIII 1 1945.09.07) via Bloomberg

Enlarge image

Arthur Goldschmidt Almanac

Duchess Anna Amalia Library, Weimar via Bloomberg

An almanac that once belonged to Arthur Goldschmidt, a Jewish businessman persecuted by the Nazis and a book collector who amassed 40,000 volumes. His grandson recently reached a settlement with the Duchess Anna Amalia Library in Weimar, which will keep the books.

An almanac that once belonged to Arthur Goldschmidt, a Jewish businessman persecuted by the Nazis and a book collector who amassed 40,000 volumes. His grandson recently reached a settlement with the Duchess Anna Amalia Library in Weimar, which will keep the books. Source: Duchess Anna Amalia Library, Weimar via Bloomberg

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Duchess Anna Amalia Library

Duchess Anna Amalia Library, Weimar via Bloomberg

The Rococo hall of the Duchess Anna Amalia Library in Weimar. In February the library returned a collection of almanacs to the heir of Arthur Goldschmidt, a Leipzig businessman persecuted by the Nazis. The Weimar library is one of the leaders among German libraries in returning stolen books.

The Rococo hall of the Duchess Anna Amalia Library in Weimar. In February the library returned a collection of almanacs to the heir of Arthur Goldschmidt, a Leipzig businessman persecuted by the Nazis. The Weimar library is one of the leaders among German libraries in returning stolen books. Source: Duchess Anna Amalia Library, Weimar via Bloomberg

His grandson Tomas Goldschmidt, who was a toddler when Arthur died in poverty in Bolivia in 1951, and had no idea the collection had survived until he was contacted by the London- based Commission for Looted Art in Europe -- 70 years after his grandfather’s escape. The commission traced him at the request of the Duchess Anna Amalia Library in Weimar.

The library has since reached a restitution settlement with Goldschmidt and, just as importantly for him, helped to illuminate an era of family history. He described his first visit to see the almanacs in 2007.
“I was so overwhelmed I couldn’t touch those books, I couldn’t swallow,” he said over coffee in a Berlin cafe. “I felt so proud. It put my family in a new light. I never knew they were so wealthy and so educated. In South America my grandfather had nothing to live on -- they were poor.”

Stolen Volumes

Goldschmidt’s story of expropriation and persecution is echoed in hundreds of thousands of Jewish biographies. The Nazis not only burned books, they stole countless volumes. There is no official estimate for how many Nazi-looted books remain in German libraries. Tracing their owners and returning them is a task that librarians say will take decades.

The Central and Regional Library Berlin estimates it has as many as 250,000 books that are potentially looted. More than 40,000 were seized from the homes of Jews who were deported or murdered. So far, the library has returned 345 books and bookplates to 29 heirs. Peter Proelss, a historian investigating the collection, says he faces “a mountain of books.”

“It would take one person 25 years to look through every book,” Proelss said.
Yet that is not enough, because few books carry visible signs of being looted. Libraries need also to comb through their acquisition records and other archival sources, according to Juergen Weber, the deputy director of the Duchess Anna Amalia Library.

Rococo Hall

In Weimar, Goldschmidt’s almanacs are stored in protective gray jackets in a modern basement depot. Above it, the library’s rococo hall gleams anew in white-and-gold glory after being ravaged by fire in 2004.
Weber said about 40,000 of the library’s books were acquired during Nazi rule. So far 4,000 have been identified as looted, though the actual figure may be triple that or more.

Librarians have also discovered Nazi-looted books acquired in recent years from booksellers, said Michael Knoche, the library’s director.

“There is not much awareness of the problem among antiquarian booksellers,” Knoche said. “We have to examine all new acquisitions too. This task will not be completed in our lifetimes.”

While the restitution of Nazi-looted art frequently makes headlines because of the value of the items, books attract less attention. Goldschmidt’s almanacs -- the Weimar library said it paid more than 100,000 euros ($130,000) to keep them -- are the biggest restitution from a German library so far.

Ghetto Death

Yet the emotional value for families can be vast. Melanie Bruce’s grandfather, Albert Friedlaender, attempted to escape Nazi Germany and follow his son to South Africa in 1941. A professor of chemistry and philosophy, he never managed to flee and died in the ghetto in Lodz. His possessions were lost.
“I got one book back from Berlin,” Bruce, a retired headmistress, said by telephone from Cape Town. “It doesn’t sound like much, but it means a lot to me. My son says he would like to have it one day.”

Most German libraries haven’t even started to search their collections for Nazi-looted books, according to Uwe Hartmann, the head of a German government office which awards funds to museums, libraries and archives for provenance research. While 57 museums have received grants from his office, only 18 libraries have qualified, he said.

“If you think how many thousands of libraries there are in Germany, that suggests there is a lot of work to be done,” Hartmann said.

Helping Libraries

In the case of paintings, lawyers are often willing to work pro bono for claimants because of the value of the objects involved. Yet few individuals or institutions offer libraries assistance. The Commission for Looted Art in Europe, which has helped libraries in Bremen, Berlin, Hamburg, Marburg, Weimar and Nuremberg to track heirs, is an exception.

Anne Webber, co-chair of the commission, tells the story of an Israel-based child survivor of the Holocaust who received three books from a German library that belonged to her mother, who had died in a concentration camp. Her mother had inscribed her name on the flyleaves.

“You can imagine what it meant to receive these books with the mother’s signature, a signature the daughter had never seen, in handwriting she’d never known, of a mother she scarcely remembered,” Webber said by telephone.

Emotional Value

“The Nazis took everything, not just artworks,” she said. “For many families, there is no material evidence of the lost lives. It can take hours and hours and days and days to trace the heirs, and the books themselves may be of little financial value. But every book that is returned has tremendous emotional value.”
The Internet made tracking lost property possible for Peter Schweitzer, a New York rabbi. While planning a trip to Berlin to research family history, he plugged his great-grandfather’s name into Google Inc.’s search engine.

“I came across the listing at the Berlin library,” Schweitzer said. “I would have never known about it otherwise - - it was a total accident.”

So his Berlin schedule last year included a visit to the Central and Regional Library to pick up a periodical about Alpine travel that had belonged to Franz and Clara Fuerstenheim, his great-grandparents.

“Holding it was like reclaiming a piece of their lives,” Schweitzer said. “But how many of the lost books will actually be returned? Very few, I imagine.”

Congratulations, Steve Cohen just bought Picasso work "Le Reve" from casino mogul Steve Wynn for US$155 million dollars! Wow!

(Image below of "Le Reve"---French for "The Dream"--- the 1932 oil painting by then 50-year-old artist Pablo Picasso portraying his 22-year-old mistress Marie-Therese Walter, sourced from en.wikipedia.org)




(Image below is the 1907 self-portrait by artist Pablo Picasso)





(Image below of Marie-Therese Walter, sourced from webartacademy.com)











(Image below of hedge fund tycoon Steve A. Cohen, sourced from businessinsider.com)






(Image below of casino tycoon Steve Wynn, sourced from bornrich.com)

Cohen Buys Picasso’s ‘Le Reve’ From Wynn for $155 Million

By Richard Vines & Katya Kazakina - Mar 27, 2013 2:12 AM GMT+0800

Stand Honda/AFP via Getty Images

Christopher Burge, chairman of Christie's, ends the bidding for Pablo Picasso's painting, "Le Reve". The work was bought by Steve Wynn and now resold to Steve Cohen.

Steve Cohen, owner of SAC Capital Advisors LP, has bought Pablo Picasso's “Le Reve” for $155 million from casino owner Steve Wynn, a person familiar with the transaction said.

March 26 (Bloomberg) -- Steven Cohen, owner of SAC Capital Advisors LP, has bought Pablo Picasso’s "Le Reve" for $155 million from casino owner Steve Wynn, a person familiar with the transaction told Bloomberg News. Betty Liu reports on Bloomberg Television's "In The Loop." (Source: Bloomberg)

Enlarge image

Steven A. Cohen

Amanda Gordon/Bloomberg

Steven A. Cohen and Mary Pat Christie at the Robin Hood Foundation benefit on May 14, 2012.

The price is the highest paid by a U.S. collector for an artwork, art dealers told Bloomberg.

Wynn had previously agreed to sell the painting to Cohen for $139 million in 2006. The purchase was canceled after Wynn, whose vision has deteriorated owing to retinitis pigmentosa, accidentally put his elbow through the canvas. Cohen remained interested in the work for years as it was repaired.

“The restoration seems to be factored into the price,” said Beverly Schreiber Jacoby, valuation specialist and president of New York-based BSJ Fine Art.  “If you didn’t know that it has been damaged, you would not see it. It’s superbly restored.”

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s proposed $616 million insider-trading settlement with SAC Capital Advisors will be the subject of a hearing on March 28 in Manhattan federal court.
SAC manages $15 billion, 60 percent of which is Cohen’s and his employees’ money. Cohen is one of the world’s biggest art collectors, with works by Van Gogh, Manet, de Kooning, Picasso, Cezanne, Warhol, Johns and Richter.

Hirst Shark

Cohen, 56, started collecting art in about 2001. His taste has shifted from Impressionist to contemporary works.

An early Cohen purchase was Edouard Manet’s 1878 “Self Portrait with a Palette” from the collection of Las Vegas casino developer Wynn. Cohen later sold the work.

Cohen’s purchases have helped boost prices of artists such as Damien Hirst, whose shark-in-formaldehyde he bought for $8 million.

“Le Reve” shows Marie-Therese Walter, described in biographies as the married artist’s mistress, model and muse. For years he gave her and their daughter financial support.

The market for pictures of her surged when the 1932 “Nude, Green Leaves and Bust” sold for $106.5 million -- a record for any work of art at auction -- at Christie’s International in New York in May 2010.
Sotheby’s in London also sold the 1932 “La Lecture” for 25.2 million pounds ($40.5 million) in February 2011. “Femme assise pres d’une fenetre” sold for 28.6 million pounds at Sotheby’s in London in February this year.

Married and 45, Picasso spotted Walter in 1927 on a Paris street when she was 17. She would be the artist’s greatest love for the next decade, inspiring numerous paintings and sculptures, according to John Richardson, Picasso’s biographer.

Young Mistress

“She was young, blond, sexy, round, accommodating,” said Michael Findlay, director of New York's Acquavella Galleries, which organized “Picasso’s Marie-Therese” exhibition in 2008, said in 2011.
Most of the top Marie-Therese paintings at auction have been dated 1932, the year of Picasso’s big retrospective at Galeries Georges Petit in Paris.

The Marie-Therese period hasn’t always been considered Picasso’s finest hour, said Findlay. This changed after “Le Reve” hit the auction block as part of the collection of Victor and Sally Ganz in 1997. It sold for $48 million.

“Everyone wanted to buy the ‘The Dream,’” said Findlay. “It was a standout among the new generation of collectors,” including Francois Pinault, Bernard Arnault, Cohen and Wynn.

The new “Le Reve” sale was earlier reported by the New York Post, citing a source it didn’t identify.
The price isn’t the most paid for a work of art. In 2011, Cezanne’s “Card Players” was bought by the royal family of Qatar for more than $250 million, Vanity Fair reported.

World's thinnest house created in 2012 by architect Jakub Szczesny as art installation in the former pre-Nazi era Jewish ghetto of Warsaw City, Poland in honor of Jewish writer Etgar Keret. This is fantastic idea! Architecture as art!


(Image below of Etgar Keret at the Keret House in Warsaw Poland sourced from gizmag.com. Photo: Bartek Warzecha, © Polish Modern Art Foundation)







(Image below sourced from smartplanet.com)











This interesting article below:

On Location

Filling a Void in Warsaw

Andreas Meichsner for The New York Times

“I fell in love with a space between two buildings from different periods,” Jakub Szczesny, the Polish architect, said. “I decided to make a link.” More Photos »

By STEVEN KURUTZ

Published: October 22, 2012

THREE years ago, Jakub Szczesny, a Polish architect, was walking through the old Jewish ghetto in Warsaw when he came upon what he described as an “appealing cushion of air” between a prewar apartment building and an 11-story postwar co-op.

Multimedia

Slide Show

A Slice of a House in Poland

For news and features on real estate, follow @nytrealestate.

Mr. Szczesny, who belongs to a collective called Centrala, which is devoted to experimental architecture, got the far-fetched idea of building a house in the incredibly thin gap between them. “I fell in love with a space between two buildings from different periods,” he said. “I decided to make a link.”

Mr. Szczesny, 39, began to imagine an ideal resident for the home, and settled on Etgar Keret, an Israeli writer whose reputation for producing collections of very short stories, like his most recent “Suddenly, a Knock on the Door,” marked him as someone accustomed to working within tight parameters, and whose Jewish heritage and Polish roots offered a moving connection to Warsaw. (As a child during World War II, the author’s mother smuggled food past Nazi checkpoints just steps from where Mr. Szczesny hoped to build.)

When Mr. Keret, 45, received a call from the architect, he was initially puzzled. “This guy with a very heavy Polish accent said he wanted to make a house in proportion to my stories,” he said. “It sounded like a prank.” But Mr. Szczesny flew to Tel Aviv, where the author lives, and proved himself sincere. And Mr. Keret liked the idea that his family would reclaim a home of sorts in Warsaw.

Last week, after more than a year of bureaucratic tangles and engineering challenges, and with the crucial aid of a crane shipped in from Germany, Keret House opened its doors — or door. At just four feet across at its widest, and a mere 28 inches at its narrowest point, it may be the world’s thinnest home.

“It was a fantastic set of impossibilities,” Mr. Szczesny said of the planning and construction. “We had heart attacks, one after another.”

The palpitations began when Mr. Szczesny had to determine who owned that appealing void between the buildings. Wola, the district that contains the Keret House, controlled the space, and local officials helped the architect navigate the permit process. But then, city heating pipes discovered under the site caused months of delays and necessitated a redesign.

The final design makes use of a light steel frame built out of small modules that screw together. Local steel companies, busy putting up shopping malls, had no interest in the small, complex job, Mr. Szczesny said. He ran into more trouble finding machinery that could work in such narrow confines. Finally, he found a company willing to build the frame and a German crane to slide it into place.

What is Keret House like inside? Raucous parties are unlikely to happen there.

The kitchenette is three feet wide (though that might not faze New Yorkers), with a miniature sink and a sliding door that conceals one of those cramped airplane bathrooms. The second floor, reached by a ladder, holds a bed whose dimensions do not encourage overnight guests.

The downstairs living area is the skinniest spot in the house, 35 inches wide. But a claustrophobe can take comfort that it also has the highest ceilings and “gets plenty of eastern light,” from one of two windows, Mr. Szczesny said. The architect used semitransparent plastic for the roof, rather than concrete, to bring in additional light and create a sense of space.

Mr. Keret, who flew to Warsaw for the opening, thinks of the house as the domestic equivalent of one of his stories: small but complete. “It’s something that is very, very compact,” he said. “But it has in it all the stuff that a house needs.”

The author said that he plans to stay in the house, at least overnight. “It seems fitting to try to create in it,” he added. “The house will be a portal to all kinds of artistic initiatives.”

By Polish law, Keret House is too small to be a residence. It has been classified as an art installation, to be owned and administered by the Foundation of Polish Art. Mr. Szczesny and Mr. Keret plan to select artists for residencies of five to seven days.

Now that Keret House is complete, Mr. Szczesny said with relief, “I’m going to get drunk for the first time in my life.”

The home’s namesake took a more sober view. Shortly before his grandfather’s death during the war, Mr. Keret said, he told his mother, “You must stay alive so our name will survive.” She left Poland for France and then Israel, where she still lives, and has never been back.

“For me, it’s a kind of metaphor for my family reclaiming a place in Poland,” Mr. Keret said. “In this place where they killed our family, there will now be a house called the Keret House.”

Like the house itself, he added, “We are like somebody who pushed their way in.

Outstanding nude painting done by National Artist Cesar Legaspi in 1979

I bought this beautiful nude painting by the late Philippine National Artist for Visual Arts Cesar Legaspi from the Dasmariñas Village, Makati City residence of a friend, a respected businessman on the night of January 23, 2013.

Legaspi is one of the best modernist painters of Southeast Asia.

By the way, the late Cesar Legaspi was the father of talented Philippine singer Celeste Legaspi.

Below is the image of the beautiful nude painting I just bought...





Description:

Cesar Legaspi,

Nude

1979

charcoal on paper 53 x 35.5 cm

signed and dated (lower right)

(Image below of Legaspi sourced from kunst-gallery.eu)

Biography of Legaspi below sourced from Kunst Gallery:

Cesar Torrrente Legaspi is part of the country’s second generation of modernists. Known as the “Thirteen Moderns,” the group includes Vicente Manansala, Hernando Ocampo, Romeo Tabuena and Arturo Luz. The breakaway group challenged the rigid tradition of conservative academism as espoused by Fernando Amorsolo, exploring and creating in the process a new set of artistic idioms.

Born in the working class district of Tondo, in Manila, 1917, Legaspi attended the University of the Philippines’ school of fine arts.

By the time he graduated in 1936, he had established a name for himself through school competitions.

He found a job as staff artist for Elizalde & Company. He later joined Philprom, an advertising agency, where he worked for 20 years.

He retired in 1968 from his post as vice president for creative planning so he could devote his time to painting.

(Image below of the then elderly National Artist Cesar Legaspi sourced from article.wn.cn)

***

The website pep.ph on August 13, 2008 featured this conference room at the home of Dr. Vicki Belo, which has a Cesar Legaspi painting on the wall...

This is the caption for this picture taken by Rene Mejia:

The conference room, adorned with Cesar Legaspi paintings, is a necessity in this busy household.

“It’s funny, but when I’m up here,” Cristalle laughs, referring to her room, “I really think it’s malaki. But sometimes my mom would say, ‘My house is so small, ’no?’ Kasi minsan, maraming tao. I have a meeting here, my brother has a meeting there, we all have meetings. That’s why we have a conference room.

“The architect wanted that to be an office, because there’s always an office in every house—where there is one table, two chairs. I told the architect, ‘No, we cannot have an office, kailangan conference room.’

“In our old house, everyone was gathering around the dining table to have a meeting. Pag dinner time na, ‘Excuse me…’ Habang nagmi-meeting, nag-aayos ang maids ng lamesa. Parang it was so weird.”

(YES! September 2007 issue)

Photography: Rene Mejia

Below is another art work of Cesar Legaspi...

Description:

Cesar Legaspi

(The Philippines 1917-1994)

Tree Planting signed and dated 'Legaspi 49' (lower right)

oil on canvas

23 7/8 x 35 7/8 in. (60.8 x 91.1 cm.)

Painted in 1949

Another Cesar Legasi painting...

Description:

CESAR LEGASPI 1917-1994

NUDE SIGNED AND DATED '71 LOWER RIGHT

WATERCOLOUR ON PAPER

30 BY 19 CM.; 11 3/4 BY 7 1/4 IN.

Congratulations to the inaugural poem of the 45-year-old---youngest ever poet at a USA presidential inauguration ceremony---civil engineer and teacher of Cuban descent Richard Blanco.


New York Times news report just now:

Inaugural Poem

‘One Today’

 

‘One Today’: Richard Blanco, the 2013 inaugural poet, read ‘One Today’ following President Obama’s swearing in for his second term.

Published: January 21, 2013

Following is the text of the poem, “One Today,” delivered by Richard Blanco, the inaugural poet.

One sun rose on us today, kindled over our shores,

peeking over the Smokies, greeting the faces

of the Great Lakes, spreading a simple truth

across the Great Plains, then charging across the Rockies.

One light, waking up rooftops, under each one, a story

told by our silent gestures moving behind windows.

My face, your face, millions of faces in morning’s mirrors,

each one yawning to life, crescendoing into our day:

pencil-yellow school buses, the rhythm of traffic lights,

fruit stands: apples, limes, and oranges arrayed like rainbows

begging our praise. Silver trucks heavy with oil or paper—

bricks or milk, teeming over highways alongside us,

on our way to clean tables, read ledgers, or save lives—

to teach geometry, or ring-up groceries as my mother did

for twenty years, so I could write this poem.

All of us as vital as the one light we move through,

the same light on blackboards with lessons for the day:

equations to solve, history to question, or atoms imagined,

the “I have a dream” we keep dreaming,

or the impossible vocabulary of sorrow that won’t explain

the empty desks of twenty children marked absent

today, and forever. Many prayers, but one light

breathing color into stained glass windows,

life into the faces of bronze statues, warmth

onto the steps of our museums and park benches 2

as mothers watch children slide into the day.

One ground. Our ground, rooting us to every stalk

of corn, every head of wheat sown by sweat

and hands, hands gleaning coal or planting windmills

in deserts and hilltops that keep us warm, hands

digging trenches, routing pipes and cables, hands

as worn as my father’s cutting sugarcane

so my brother and I could have books and shoes.

The dust of farms and deserts, cities and plains

mingled by one wind—our breath. Breathe. Hear it

through the day’s gorgeous din of honking cabs,

buses launching down avenues, the symphony

of footsteps, guitars, and screeching subways,

the unexpected song bird on your clothes line.

Hear: squeaky playground swings, trains whistling, or whispers across café tables, Hear:

the doors we open

for each other all day, saying: hello| shalom,

buon giorno |howdy |namaste |or buenos días

in the language my mother taught me—in every language

spoken into one wind carrying our lives

without prejudice, as these words break from my lips.

One sky: since the Appalachians and Sierras claimed

their majesty, and the Mississippi and Colorado worked

their way to the sea. Thank the work of our hands:

weaving steel into bridges, finishing one more report

for the boss on time, stitching another wound 3

or uniform, the first brush stroke on a portrait,

or the last floor on the Freedom Tower

jutting into a sky that yields to our resilience.

One sky, toward which we sometimes lift our eyes

tired from work: some days guessing at the weather

of our lives, some days giving thanks for a love

that loves you back, sometimes praising a mother

who knew how to give, or forgiving a father

who couldn’t give what you wanted.

We head home: through the gloss of rain or weight

of snow, or the plum blush of dusk, but always—home,

always under one sky, our sky. And always one moon

like a silent drum tapping on every rooftop

and every window, of one country—all of us—

facing the stars

hope—a new constellation

waiting for us to map it,

waiting for us to name it—together

(Image below sourced from cnn.com)




Watch the video below...

Inauguration 2013: Richard Blanco's Poetry Pays Homage to American Exper...: http://youtu.be/1mDrk8AC4G4 via @youtube

Among the delightful purchases of art I have ever done were the three oil works by the superbly talented painter Waling Waling Gorospe from her exhibit "Storage Stories" held from January 6 to 28, 2012 at Finale Art File in Makati City, the Philippines.

Waling Gorospe was born in 1966 and graduated in 1986 from the University of the Philippines (U.P.) in Diliman, Quezon City with a Bachelor of Fine Arts (Major in Painting) degree with Cum Laude honors.

Why I liked these three small oil paintings? The imageries are delightful, cheerful, with vibrant colors like red and yellow gold, and celebrating music. There's also a wonderful background story, which was on the wall during the exhibit and which I also got. I will look for the story and share it here....












Here was the description of her art exhibit:

Stories from Sojourns

Waling Gorospe’s latest collection of works is a contemplation on containment. Tangibly-rendered images of suitcases, bags, and trunks—filled to the brim—occupy center space in her works, packed and pregnant with narratives from the past.

‘Storage Stories’ quietly conveys the artist’s fascination with these objects: her musings on what empty luggage and bags must have once contained and her questions about forgotten things packed in bags, long covered with dust. The encounter with such signs is inevitably physical as well as symbolic: Gorospe herself migrated recently to another continent and has had to face the task of dealing with boxes, suitcases, bric-a-bracs, useless things, and special junk along the way. The artist writes:

So many stories [are] attached to objects by their keepers. Most people can look at somebody else’s collection with indifference. But, sometimes, an encounter with an object not your own can remind you of a past experience– a friendship, a trip, a worry.

Her paintings represent these objects not merely as inanimate vessels but also as signs of a sojourn: a containment of intangible, immaterial stories and sentiments throughout the years and a chronicle of sites and people encountered along the way.

The paintings take on the challenge of reminiscing, retelling, and de-cluttering: unpacking forgotten memories to clear the way, to be finally void of the past and all the weight that it carries. In the end, Gorospe’s art enables us to find solace in such strange comfort: uncovering a transitory spell of time when one world begins as another ends.


Other art works of Waling Gorospe in that same show are shown here below, not in any order:



This was one of my favorites, but already bought! Still, I admire and appreciate this art work....




More art works...