Ang Kiukok

Paintings by Ang Kiukok

Born in March of 1931 in Davao City Philippine Islands, Ang Kiukok was a painter known for his expressive, Cubist works. He often chose dynamic or disturbing subject matters, which frequently depicting rabid dogs, crucifixions, and screaming figures in an abstracted geometric style. Ang’s work gained both critical and commercial success in the Philippines throughout the 1960s.

Ang’s initial training began at an early age, when he was taught by a local commercial artist the art of charcoal drawing. After his family’s move to Manila, he attended the University of Santo Tomas from 1952 to 1954, where he studied under Filipino cubist painter Vincente Manansala. Ang’s first formal recognition of his work occurred in 1953 when his “Calesa” achieved third prize at the Shell National Students Art Competition. With encouragement from Manansala, he had his first solo show at Manila’s Contemporary Arts Gallery in 1954. Subsequent shows earned Ang many awards from the Art Association of the Philippines.

Ang Kiukok gained national prominence in the 1960s with his distinctive style which fused aspects of cubism, surrealism, and expressionism. His work favored subjects as rabid dogs, fighting cocks, and figures either bound in chains or experiencing great rage. Although Ang did not have a reputation as a critic of the Ferdinand Marcos government, the most violent and gruesome images were painted during Marcos’s reign of martial law.

Ang Kiukok was given the honor of being a National Artist for Visual Arts in 2001, by vitue of Presidential Proclamation No. 32, which was signed on April 20 of 2001 by President Gloria Arroyo. By the end of his life, Ang was not only a critical success but also a commercially popular one. He died in Quezon City, Philippines, in May of 2001 at the age of seventy-four.

Top Insert Image: George Garçon, “Ang Kiukok”, Date Unknown, Gelatin Silver Print

Bottom Insert Image: Ang Kiukok, “Fisherman”, 1981, Oil on Canvas, 88 x 101 cm, Private Collection

Jackson Pollock

Jackson Pollock, “The Key”, Oil on Linen, 1946, 150 x 208 cm., Art Institute of Chicago

“The Key” belongs to Jackson Pollock’s ‘Accabonac Creek’ series, named for a stream near the East Hampton property that he and his wife, the painter Lee Krasner, purchased in late 1945. Marking a crucial moment in his evolution as an artist, this quasi-Surrealist painting was created on the floor of an upstairs bedroom and worked on directly from all sides.

Although there is a general suggestion of landscape, here the process of painting became primary, expressing the power of spontaneous action and chance effects. The resulting abstraction, with its expressive, gestural appearance, prefigured the all-over compositions of Pollock’s celebrated drip paintings, which debuted the following year.

Paul Klee

Paul Klee, “Wald Bau (Forest Construction)”, 1919, Mixed Media Chalk, 27 x 25 cm

Though Paul Klee was affiliated with the German expressionists, his work defies categorization. Ever experimental, he employed a variety of materials and styles throughout his career. In 1921 he began teaching at the Bauhaus. Klee’s collected lectures were published as “Writings on Form and Design Theory (Schriften zur Form und Gestaltungslehre)”, today considered one of the most important teaching texts in the history of modern art.

In this abstract painting entitled “Wald Bau, Forest Construction,” there are references to an evergreen forest intermingled with gridded elements suggestive of walls and paths. The painting mixes symbolic primitive drawing with a representational use of color.

Anton Kolig

Figurative Paintings by Anton Kolig

Anton Kolig, an important artist in Austria during the 1900s, spent considerable time with Sebastian Isepp, Franz Wiegele and Anton Mahringer in Nötsch in Carinthia. They formed an Austrian artistic movement within the first half of the 20th century called the “Nötscher Kreis (Circle of Nötsch)”. This movement with its strong Expressionist style decisively shaped the artwork in Austria .

Anton Kolig did many male nudes as well as still lifes and portraits. He preferred monumental paintings and admired Michelangelo, Hans von Marées and Lovis Corinth. Some of his paintings are reflections of his personal religious sense.

During a bombardment in in 1944 two-thirds of his works were destroyed. Anton Kolig is represented in the Austrian Gallery Belvedere, in the Military History Museum and in the Leopold Collection as well as in the Collection Essl and in the Art Gallery of Carinthia.