Jeremias (Jerry) Elizalde Navarro (1924 - 1999), National Artist for visual arts, graduated with a Bachelor’s degree of Fine Arts major in Painting at the University of Santo Tomas in Manila. He had represented the Philippines in various artistic events from Brazil, Berne, Czechoslovakia, Japan, Indonesia and the United States. The register of his accomplishments is extensive and his masterpieces ranged prolifically from oils, acrylic, watercolour, sculpture, multi-dimensional and mixed media. He not only had numerous one-man exhibitions but he had also participated simultaneously in countless group exhibitions in the Philippines as well as overseas.
Navarro was an epitome of the versatile quintessential artist with the focused vision, keen foresight and prolific genius that made a mould all of its own. The opulence of his art, its vigor and profundity, makes the loss of its creator take up a superior purpose and influence that flourish in that absence. We conspicuously perceive what was once and what has been; sense short-lived instances hovering from those remains of colours and hues that reach out from his works and canvasses. While infirmity gradually devastate him, his art, meantime took on an unbounded and distinct uniqueness of its own.
