LOT 38
CENON RIVERA
(B. Philippines, 1922-1998)
Untitled, 1966
Signed and dated
“CENON M. RIVERA 1966” on middle bottom
Acrylic on canvas
90 x 60 cm
Provenance
Private Collection, Kuala Lumpur
SOLD – RM 8,260
Cenon Rivera, a painter of note, began his art career in the 1950s and later made significant contributions in Philippine art. In 1952, he pioneered in graphic art by making distinctive eighty different sets of serigraphed Christmas Cards. Then in 1956, he began experimenting on monoprint, woodcut, linocut and lawanicut.
It was also in this year when he started teaching graphic art at the University of Santo Tomas. He also published “Pintig ng Buhay at iba pang Katha,” a bilingual collection of short stories, poems, essays and other writings he did from 1938 to 1956.
In 1957, Cenon Rivera started a painting style characterized by horizontal and vertical grids for which he was best remembered. However, despite all the articles written about him and the significant works he produced, the man himself had remained a mystery to many. In this April 2012 feature, Noel Rivera, the artist’s son and Executive Director of the Pasig City Museum, provided much information about his father’s early career and development as an artist; his artistic outputs; his known and unknown contributions as an art professor and director of the UST Department of Fine Arts and his private life with him.