Trading

Vicente Silva Manansala (1910 – 1981) was a pioneering Abstractionist in the Philippine art scene whose cubist style was credited with bridging the gap between the city and the suburbs, between the rural and cosmopolitan ways of life. One of the original 13 Moderns, Manansala portrayed a nation in transition, an allusion to the new culture brought by Americans and its postwar development from agrarian to industrial society. Like in many of his works, Manansala’s “Trading” combines the elements of provincial folk culture with the congestion issues of the city. It reflects his style of transparent cubism in this work using acrylic on paper, wherein the “delicate tones, shapes, and patterns of figure and environment are masterfully superimposed.”