Background
Manansala was born in Macabebe, Pampanga on January 22, 1910. He was the second of the eight children of Perfecto Q. Manansala and Engracia Silva.
He later received a UNESCO fellowship to study at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris.
Vicente Manansala studied at the University of the Philippines School of Fine Art until 1930.
Manansala was born in Macabebe, Pampanga on January 22, 1910. He was the second of the eight children of Perfecto Q. Manansala and Engracia Silva.
Vicente Manansala studied at the University of the Philippines School of Fine Art until 1930. He later received a UNESCO fellowship to study at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris.
Manansala worked as an illustrator for the Philippines Herald and Liwayway and as a layout artist for Photonews and Saturday Evening News Magazine in the 1930’s. He held his first one-man show at the Manila Hotel in 1951, and then went on to work as a professor at the University of Santo Tomas School of Fine Arts from 1951 to 1958.
Manansala's canvases were described as masterpieces that brought the cultures of the barrio and the city together. His "Madonna of the Slums" is a portrayal of a mother and child from the countryside who became urban shanty residents once in the city. In his "Jeepneys", Manansala combined the elements of provincial folk culture with the congestion issues of the city.
Manansala developed transparent cubism, wherein the "delicate tones, shapes, and patterns of figure and environment are masterfully superimposed." A fine example of Manansala using this "transparent and translucent" technique is his composition, "Kalabaw (Carabao)."
Vicente Manansala, a National Artist of the Philippines in Visual Arts, was a direct influence to his fellow Filipino neo-realists: Malang, Angelito Antonio, Norma Belleza, and Manuel Baldemor. The Honolulu Museum of Art, the Lopez Memorial Museum (Manila), the Philippine Center (New York City), the Singapore Art Museum and Holy Angel University (Angeles City, Philippines) are among the public collections holding work by Vicente Manansala.
Holy Angel University recently opened a section of its museum called "The Vicente Manansala Collection", holding most of the estate left by the artist. He died on August 22, 1981 in Manila, Philippines due to lung cancer.
Market Vendors
1949Madonna of the Slums
1950Man, Girl and Cock
1953Still Life
1957Philippines Mother and Child
1965Untitled (Landscape)
1966Planting Rice
1967Luksong-Tinik (Jumping over Thorns)
1973Candle Vendors
1976The Bird Seller
1976Ang Magbabayo (Pounding Rice)
1979Mother and Child
1981Birds of paradise
Community
Machinery
The musicians
Two men with cockerel
Vendors from the market place
Vicente Manansala adhered to the artistic traditions of Cubism. He believed that the true beauty of art lay in the process of creating it.
Vicente married Hermenegilda (Hilda) Diaz, with whom he had one child.