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SANSÓ TO BE HONORED BY EXHIBITION OF WORKS ON BRITTANY AND UNIQUE AREAS OF THE PHILIPPINES
With his forthcoming receipt of the rank of Chevalier for the Order of Arts and Letters from the French Government, Juvenal Sansó becomes among the most multi-awarded Philippine-based visual artists.
As a tribute to this distinguished and internationally renowned artist, Galerie Joaquin Main is organizing a special exhibit of 56 works from Sansó collected over the years. Titled Parallel Inspirations, the show opens Wednesday August 27, 2008 at 7 PM and runs until October 10, 2008. Galerie Joaquin Main is located at 371 P. Guevarra St. corner Montessori Lane, Addition Hills, San Juan. Tel. 7239253 or 7239418. Visit www.galeriejoaquin.com.
Sansó’s forthcoming medal from the French government is for his outstanding achievement in the field of arts and culture. He had lived in Paris for 50 years and his paintings of the vibrant and challenging landscapes of the Brittany coast form a large part of his body of works. Sansó spent 24 summers of his life from 1958 to 1982 at the summer residence of the Yves de la Dantec family in the French coast of Brittany.
To be presented in this current exhibition are works by the artist that were inspired by Brittany. But aside from that, Sansó admits to having been inspired by certain memorable areas in the Philippines. Among these areas are the rocks and rivers of Montalban where the artist spent several years when the family evacuated there during the Japanese occupation, various areas in the Batangas Coast where the bancas and the quiet days and evenings spent in Calatagan with Enrique Zobel and in later years with the Laurel family in Matabungkay created lasting impressions. "Our first visit to Calatagan we passed the Tagaytay ridge. It was so foggy we couldn’t see a thing on the way over but on the way back it proved to be a glorious sight." Tagaytay and the tranquil Taal Lake too inspired many paintings. The visits to Tagaytay started when as a student of Fine Arts at the University of the Philippines in the early nineteen fifties, the young Sansó did on the spot paintings with his classmates. The visits continued with Cesar Legaspi and the Saturday Group for sketching sessions till this day where Sansó would be invited for rest and relaxation by Henry Sy and his family. The Pasig River was a source of inspiration as well where as a young boy, he used to swim there. Then there is Subic where the Saturday Group of artists went and sketched some two decades ago. There are also the coastlines of Cavite, including the hills at Ternate where one of the most memorable and unforgettable sources of inspiration is of course the Manila Bay with her golden and vivid orange sunsets. Parallel Inspirations gives a unique and living testimony to how the Brittany paintings combined with these important places in the Philippines helped shape the art of Sansó. These now form part of this unique and very interesting collection.
The Chevalier award from the French government is the third and equally important award to be given by a country. Equivalent to a knighthood, it will be presented to him by the French Ambassador next month. He adds this to his Presidential Medal of Merit Award from the Republic of Philippines in 2006 and the Order of Isabella from King Juan Carlos of Spain in 2007. He will now have as part of his accomplishments three of the highest medals or knighthoods for cultural achievement from the three countries he has lived in: Spain, France and the Philippines. |
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