MoCA of the Month
Ateneo Art Gallery de Manila University
The Ateneo Art Gallery de Manila University is the first museum of modern Philippine art. It is housed on the ground floor of the Rizal Library main building and serves as an art resource for the university community and the general public as well.The Ateneo Art Gallery hosts innovative exhibitions and public programs highlighting works from its permanent collection as well as works from other collections for special thematic shows. The Ateneo Art Gallery also spearheads an exciting overview of young Philippine contemporary art annually through the Ateneo Art Awards, now recognized as “the most prestigious prize for an emerging artist in the Philippines”. In reaching out to an expanded audience and taking art beyond the Gallery’s confines, the Ateneo Art Awards exhibition has been hosted since 2005 at Power Plant Mall, Rockwell Center, Makati City, before moving to an extended run at the museum.
Rizal Library
Ateneo de Manila University
Katipunan Avenue
Loyola Heights
Quezon City, 1108
Email. ijaucian@ateneo.edu
Mission Statement
As the only museum in the country dedicated to the collection, display and interpretation of modern Philippine art, the Ateneo Art Gallery is poised to engage with the richness and diversity of the art of our time.
As a university art museum, it seeks to animate cultural life on campus and serve as an art resource for students as well as the general public.
Zero-in, which began in 2002, is the annual consortium of the country’s leading private museums which includes the Ateneo Art Gallery, Ayala Museum, Lopez Museum, Museo Pambata and Bahay Tsinoy. Each museum presents an exhibition at the third quarter of the year revolving on a selected theme.
Under the Ateneo Art Gallery’s Engage program, works of significant artists from overseas are shown in the museum, collaborating in the context of the museum’s permanent collection of modern Philippine art. The Engage program was initiated in 2005 with the support of Ateneo de Manila University President Rev. Bienvenido F. Nebres, SJ.
Understanding of Contemporary art: Contemporary Art only plays a role as art from young Philippine artists to whom the Art Award is dedicated. International and Western art are only seldomly displayed within the programme Engage.
Collection
The Ateneo Art Gallery holds over 500 artworks that include paintings, prints, drawings, sculptures, photographs and posters. The collection traces its roots to the late Fernando Zóbel de Ayala (1924-1984). Painter, art scholar and teacher at the Ateneo, Zóbel donated over 200 artworks to form a study collection for university students. First housed in Bellarmine Hall in 1961, it moved to the ground floor of Rizal Library in 1967, where it has remained since.
The Print & Drawing Collection
Arguably the finest collection of its kind held by a public institution in Southeast Asia, the Gallery’s fine prints and drawings consist of over 300 works by local and international artists from the Renaissance to the present. The etchings, engravings, woodcuts, lithographs and other graphic-arts media represent over 80 artists, including Rembrandt, Goya, Delacroix, Toulouse-Lautrec, Picasso, and Sansó.The Modern Philippine Art Collection
While the Fernando Zóbel bequest includes works of an earlier generation—notably Fernando Amorsolo and Fabian de la Rosa—it consists of paintings mostly by key postwar modernists, especially those who had exhibited in the now legendary Philippine Art Gallery of the 1950s and 60s. These include Vicente Manansala, Hernando Ocampo, Anita Magsaysay-Ho, Arturo Luz, Cesar Legaspi, Napoleon Abueva, Ang Kiukok, Jerry Elizalde Navarro and David Medalla.The Contemporary Philippine Art Collection
Through the years, other philanthropists and artists followed Zóbel’s initiative to donate works of art to the Gallery, filling gaps in the collection with characteristic pieces by Diosdado Lorenzo, Galo B. Ocampo and Nena Saguil, among others. The collection now surveys every modern Philippine art movement in the postwar era: from neo-realism and abstract expressionism to social realism and today’s postmodern hybrid tendencies. Contemporary artists represented include Jose Tence Ruiz, Impy Pilapil, Julie Lluch, Anna Fer, and Alfredo Esquillo.The Ateneo Art Gallery also spearheads an overview of young Philippine contemporary art annually through the Ateneo Art Awards. In reaching out to an expanded audience and taking art beyond the Gallery’s confines, the Ateneo Art Awards exhibition has been hosted since 2005 at Power Plant Mall, Rockwell Center, Makati City, before moving to an extended run at the museum.
Collection Focus
History
The collection traces its roots to the late Fernando Zóbel de Ayala (1924-1984). Painter, art scholar and teacher at the Ateneo, Zóbel donated over 200 artworks to form a study collection for university students. First housed in Bellarmine Hall in 1961, it moved to the ground floor of Rizal Library in 1967, where it has remained since.
