Revisit the postwar art scene with A Synergy of Ventures at the Ateneo Art Gallery

November 5, 2024

In commemoration of the Fernando Zóbel Birth Centennial, the Ateneo Art Gallery (AAG) and the Embassy of Spain in the Philippines present A Synergy of Ventures: The Postwar Art Scene, open for public viewing from 16 September 2024 until 12 July 2025. The exhibition will focus on the years immediately following the Second World War until the 1960s, a pivotal period in the development of Philippine modern art. The exhibition will mainly present the core collection Fernando Zóbel had donated to the Ateneo de Manila University between 1959 to 1965, along with other pieces from the current AAG Collection. It will also feature loaned works from the family of Purita Kalaw Ledesma, the Kalaw-Ledesma Foundation, Inc. (KLFI), and the Cultural Center of the Philippines.

The exhibition will be supplemented by materials from the KLFI archives and the Zóbel archives, courtesy of the Fundacion Juan March. These will be placed within the context and conditions of the time, during which a new visual idiom was evolving. This was the period when Zóbel eventually made the crucial decision to pursue a full-time art practice while still straddling corporate work.