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<img src="https://cdn.kahimyang.com/resources-19/nena-saguil.webp" alt="Simplicia "Nena" Laconico Saguil" loading="lazy" />
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(Nena Saguil posing with some of her art, undated)
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She was a modernist and abstract painter well known for her cosmic, organic, and spiritual abstract works depicting internal landscapes of feeling and imagination. For these, Saguil is considered a pioneer of Filipino abstract art.
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Raised in a conservative Catholic household, Nena rejected the Catholic school education her parents desired for her. She received her education at University of the Philippines School of Fine Arts where she studied under <a href="https://kahimyang.com/kauswagan/articles/1153/today-in-philippine-history-may-30-1892-fernando-amorsolo-was-born-in-paco-manila" class="news_link">Fernando Amorsolo</a>, a conservative painter and teacher. She graduated from UP in 1933 with a Certificate in Painting. She received her undergraduate degree in 1949, after the Philippines gained its independence following the end of World War II.
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Saguil's first solo exhibition occurred in 1950 at the newly opened Philippine Art Gallery where she met with modernist artists like <a href="https://kahimyang.com/kauswagan/articles/2855/today-in-philippine-history-january-22-1910-vicente-silva-manansala-a-cubist-painter-and-illustrator-was-born-in-macabebe-pampanga" class="news_link">Vicente Manansala</a>, Hernando Ruiz Ocampo, Arturo Luz, Romeo Tabuena, <a href="https://kahimyang.com/kauswagan/articles/2637/the-women-in-anita-magsaysays-art" class="news_link">Anita Magsaysay-Ho</a> and Fernando Zobel de Ayala. In his review of the 7th Annual Art Association of the Philippines exhibition, Fernando Zobel de Ayala declared that the Filipino "moderns ... seemed to carry the day both in quantity and quality." Among them, he praised the Saguil and Victor Oteyza for the originality of their works. This network of Filipino modernist artists to which Saguil belonged became known as the "Neo-Realist Group".
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<img src="https://cdn.kahimyang.com/resources-19/nena-saguil-cosmos.webp" alt="Nena Saguil cosmos series" loading="lazy" />
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(From the cosmos series Nena Saguil)
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In 1954, at the age of 40, Saguil left the Philippines for Spain after receiving a scholarship to study abstract painting. Two years later, she moved to Paris to continue her studies at the Ecole des Artes Americane.
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For almost two decades, she pursued her art while living a reclusive life in a small Paris apartment and working housekeeping and other odd jobs to support herself, rather than return to her family, friends and the comfortable life she lived back home.
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Her first European solo exhibit happened in Paris in 1957 at the Galerie Raymond Creuze and featured her new abstract style of lines and geometric shapes. Along with Vicente Manansala, Saguil also exhibited at the 1958 Spanish-American Biennale in Cuba.
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September 19, 1914: Nena Saguil, a pioneer in Filipino abstract art, was born in Santa Cruz, Laguna