A RETROSPECTIVE exhibit introduces the public to Jose S. Pardo, a little known Thomasian artist and former dean of the College of Architecture and Fine Arts who was one of the country’s pioneer modernists.
Through the Ateneo Art Gallery and the Avellana Art Gallery, the exhibit Jose S. Pardo In Line With Modernism is running until May 30 at the Ateneo Art Gallery.
Pardo belongs to the first wave of modernist painters that included Victoria Edades, Diosdado Lorenzo, Carlos Lorenzo, Galo Ocampo, Hernando Ocampo, Anita Magsaysay-Ho, Cesar Legaspi and Vicente Manansala.
Like other modernists, Pardo worked with familiar themes popularized by mainstream painters. His works are mostly about women and images of rural Philippines like a herd of carabaos, a cluster of nipa huts and street vendors.
“Quiapo Veil-Candle Vendors shows two vendors on a street wearing translucent and intricately crafted veils.
“Carabaos and Houses” is a vivid depiction of farming life while “Tsismis” shows two women chatting inside a nipa hut.
Pardo has a wide range of color selection with emphases on green and red combined with strong hues of magenta and orange. His other works depict distorted images of the human body such as “Pulubi,” “Tsismis,” “Talulan Marikit” and “Marikit with Caladium.”
Pardo taught in UST and served as the Dean of the now defunct College of Architecture and Fine Arts from 1968-1971 and retired in 1980. He passed away last Sept. 25 at the age of 86. Jose Bimbo F. Santos
