Art museum opens in Pampanga

By Joelyn G. Baluyut

Thursday 22nd of March 2012

ANGELES CITY, Pampanga, March 22 (PIA) -- The Holy Angel University (HAU) will open today its own museum, which is dedicated to preserve and promote local heritage.

The launch of the Kapampangan Arts Museum, according to the Center for Kapampangan Studies of the Holy Angel University, is in line with the celebration of the center’s 10th anniversary which will feature sketches and memorabilia collection of Kapampangan National Artist for Visual Arts in 1982 Vicente “Enteng” Manansala y Silva of San Roque, Macabebe town.

Manansala was a Philippine cubist painter and illustrator and a native of Macabebe. He studied at the University of the Philippines School of Fine Arts and received a six-month grant by United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization to study at the Ecole de Beaux Arts in Banff and Montreal, Canada.

In 1950, he then received a nine-month scholarship to study at the Ecole de Beaux Arts in Paris by the French government.

His works were described as masterpieces that brought cultures of the barrio and the city together. Manansala also consistently worked in the figurative mode, with the exception of a few abstract works.

Among his masterpieces include Madonna of the Slums, Jeepneys, Kalabaw (Carabao), Murals “Stations of the Cross” in the Church of the Parish of the Holy Sacrifice, Bangkusay Seascape, and Pila Pila sa Bigas (Left and Right).

The museum will be open to the public and is located at the left wing of the Don Juan Nepomuceno Main Building, second floor in HAU. (CLJD/JGB-PIA3)