A look into the life of the muralist who formed a distinct aesthetic in Filipino art
In a letter to his daughter Carmen, National Artist Carlos “Botong” Francisco (1912-1969) wrote, “To live we must go back to a bigger audience. For this, it must have the power to communicate and not repel. That is why I love to paint big murals for like a composer, I can create a symphony from a history of our country or our own way of life.”
Throughout his life, Francisco created large-scale paintings that documented and told the story of the Philippines—a source for events and ways of life meant to never be forgotten.
I remember as a student coming across the artist’s unfinished, last work he painted, “Camote Diggers,” auctioned for P7,592,000 at León Gallery in 2017. The relatively small work painted in 1969 featured what looked to me like an elderly woman and a young man in tattered clothes crouched over and pulling sweet potatoes out of the ground. The painting was done in his last year of life and veered away from the more precise, cutout-like figures in his earlier works.
Against a blood-red background, the painting is an example of the artist as a social realist. A gut-wrenching, raw portrayal of poverty and strife.
Francisco did not usually portray such visceral nor dark social issues in his other works of art. Instead, he focused on more documentary-like depictions of historical or cultural events.
Yet, the work still shows the earthy and ethereal character of Francisco’s paintings that was consistent throughout his life—a style that ultimately established a distinct aesthetic in Philippine art.
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Early life of Carlos “Botong” Francisco
While he was declared posthumously as a National Artist in 1973, Francisco had humble beginnings. He was born in 1912 in Angono, Rizal, a town known for traditional wood carving and the Higantes Festival, which would later be known as the birthplace of many artists, such as National Artist Ang Kiukok, Eraserheads band members Ely Buendia and Buddy Zabala, and members of the Filipino rock band The Juan Band.
As a young child, Francisco showed an early affinity for visual storytelling. He grew up to study fine arts at the University of the Philippines under Fernando Amorsolo and Guillermo Tolentino, only to leave a semester short of graduating to illustrate for The Tribune and La Vanguardia publications. These skills would contribute heavily to his meticulous approach to composition later on.
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During this period, Francisco collaborated with Victorio Edades and Fermin Sanchez to create stage sets for the Manila Grand Opera House and Clover Theater. After the war, Francisco joined the faculty of the University of Santo Tomas, balancing his teaching role with work in Philippine cinema as a scriptwriter and costume designer alongside Miguel Conde. In 1961, he served as production designer for the film adaptation of Jose Rizal’s “Noli Me Tángere.”
Most exceptionally, beyond artistic and even theatrical pursuits, Francisco discovered the Angono Petroglyphs in 1965 while languidly watching the clouds drift on a field trip overseeing boy scouts. These petroglyphs are now recognized as a cornerstone of pre-colonial Philippine heritage.
Perhaps it was fate that led Francisco to discover the pre-colonial rock art—a moment that seemed to affirm his destiny as an artist—as the discovery paralleled his life’s work: creating powerful and sensitive murals that told a rich and enduring story of the Filipino people.
Botong Francisco the muralist
When Francisco spoke of creating “symphonies” from history, he wasn’t being metaphorical. His large-scale murals seemed to orchestrate the Filipino collective memory, with complex compositions of figures and minute details coming together like instruments in a grand musical arrangement.
Lisa Guerrero Nakpil describes Francisco as “the country’s very own Diego Rivera,” skyrocketing to fame with his murals printed in Newsweek for the 1953 World’s Fair in New York.
As a member of the trailblazing “Thirteen Moderns,” Francisco stood alongside the likes of Victorio Edades and Galo B. Ocampo to steer Philippine art from the classical style of the Amorsolo school towards modernism.
A hallmark of Francisco’s work features stylized figures rendered in flowing, serpentine lines. Restorer Helmuth Josef Zotter describes Francisco’s art as “a prime example of linear painting where lines and contours appear like cutouts.”
Within the hallowed halls of the Old Senate Session Hall at the National Museum of the Philippines is the magnificent mural and National Cultural Treasure, “Filipino Struggles Through History.” Originally located in the Manila City Hall, the murals were restored and placed in the National Museum. Among the many murals snaking around the room are historical scenes and marked milestones in Philippine history such as the “First Mass at Limasawa” and “The Martyrdom of Rizal,” transformed into mythologies through Francisco’s paintings.
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Tinikling mural goes to auction
As Francisco looked at art as a symphony, so did one of his grand artworks convey the sensation of dancing. “Tinikling 2” dances into art history as it goes up for auction at León Gallery’s year-end Kingly Treasures Auction.
Low but long, the painting is about 3 1/2 ft. high and 10 ft. long, with a starting price of P24 million. The painting, in pristine condition, was also made in 1964, just a few years before the artist’s death.
The work is from the collection of Estefania Aldaba-Lim, “a woman of firsts,” as the Philippines’ first female cabinet secretary, the first Filipina female with PhD in clinical psychology from the University of Michigan, and one of the first advocates of mental health and children’s rights after World War II. Her compassion also led to her appointment as a representative for UNICEF.
At a glance, Francisco’s “Tinikling 2” shows the woman dancing sweetly between poles, a bright red gumamela in her hair. Nearby, men pound rice, hard at work. Others play the guitar and clap their hands. While in the background, there appears to be a glimpse of a man working inside his home in the bahay kubo.
Nakpil describes it as, “…filled with the jubilation of dance and song but also another cycle of hardwork and discipline.”
Through this second edition of Tinikling (the first was lost, last seen in Malacañang in 1962), Francisco presents an example of his work that shows the living, breathing ecosystems of Philippine life—dancers, workers, musicians, and elders, all coexisting in a single, vibrant tableau, reflective of a greater Philippine story.
The Kingly Treasures Auction 2024 will be held on Nov. 30, 2 p.m. at León Gallery, G/F Eurovilla I, Rufino cor. Legazpi Sts., Legazpi Village, Makati City. Visit www.león-gallery.com, email info@león-gallery.com, or call (02) 8856-2781 for more information.
View the entire catalog here.