In collaboration with the Municipality of Angono and Angono Cultural Heritage Office, Vibal Foundation launched Nineteenth-Century Masters of Angono Art on February 25, 2023, at SM Angono Event Center. Authored by James Owen G. Saguinsin, this art book probes the history of Angono, the roles of its foundational artists in shaping the town into the national art center it is today, and their contribution to the Filipino artistic identity.
Nineteenth-Century Masters of Angono Art endeavors to recommence the town’s art history and to showcase the lives and oeuvres of Angono’s triumvirate. These are Juan Senson, Pedro Piñon, and Moises Villaluz Sr., whose works are unacknowledged and seldom studied, apart from a few pieces which have ended up in the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas collection as cultural treasures.
Author James Owen G. Saguinsin spent more than twenty years researching Angono and its neighboring towns, interviewing residents and relatives of the artists, and scouring old bodegas and family homes for artworks that survived the war, calamity, and the ravages of time and neglect. This art book, illustrated with more than 100 artworks, is mainly unearthed by the author and documented here for the first time.
The Rector of Manila Cathedral, Fr. Reginald Rivera Malicdem describes this book as “Our contemporary artists surely stand on the shoulders of Botong Francisco. But Botong stood on the shoulders of these great masters who came before him.”
“Much more than just a historical presentation of the life and works of Senson, Piñon, and Villaluz, this book makes us realize the greatness that runs in our blood… The greatness of Angono does not depend only on the big names that made, and continuously make, our town has known. It lies in every simple and ordinary citizen of Angono,” Malicdem continues.
Nineteenth-Century Masters of Angono Art is part of the Fifty Shades of Philippine Art. A series of affordable and concisely written art books that explore the lives and works of major Philippine artists whether fine, modern or folk. Other titles in the series include Isabelo Tampinco, Francisco Coching, Toti Cerda, Damian Domingo, The Art of Window, Display, and Design, Philippine Cinematic Art, Second Edition, and Heritage Churches of the Cagayan River Basin.
Available in hardcover and softcover editions, the books may be purchased online at Vibal Shop, Shopee, Lazada, GrabMart, and Amazon. For bulk orders, please contact marketing@vibalgroup.com.
