UPV-MACH to feature 16 paintings from the Lopez Museum and Library Collection this January 2026

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Another major art exhibition is set to open at the UP Visayas Museum of Art and Cultural Heritage (UPV-MACH) at the Pagwa Performing Arts Hall.

Titled Sown by the Traveler: Women and Migrants in Philippine Art – Ginsab-og sang Pangayaw: Kababayenhan kag mga Migrante sa Pilipinhon nga Taliambong, the exhibition features 16 paintings from the Lopez Museum and Library Collection by artists who emerged as forerunners of modernism in the Philippines.

Curated by Dr. Patrick Flores, the exhibition opens on 23 January 2025 at 5:00 PM and presents works by Anita Magsaysay-Ho, Nena Saguil, Alfonso Ossorio, Juvenal Sanso, Macario Vitalis, and Fernando Zóbel—artists whose lives and practices were shaped by migration and transnational experience.

Anita Magsaysay-Ho was a member of the Thirteen Moderns, a group that exemplified Philippine modernism, and was its only woman artist.

She studied at the University of the Philippines School of Fine Arts and School of Design before pursuing further training in the United States at the Cranbrook Academy of Art in Michigan and the Art Students League of New York in the 1930s.

Nena Saguil was the sole woman artist included in The First Exhibition of Non-Objective Art in the Philippines in 1953.

Awarded scholarships, she studied in the United States, Spain, and France, where she eventually resided for the rest of her life.

Alfonso Ossorio left the Philippines for the United States in 1924, earning a bachelor’s degree in fine arts from Harvard University and pursuing further studies at the Rhode Island School of Design.

He returned to the Philippines in 1950 to create a monumental mural for the Chapel of St. Joseph the Worker in Victorias, Negros Occidental.

Born in Spain, Juvenal Sansó moved with his family to the Philippines and studied at the University of the Philippines and the University of Santo Tomas.

He later continued his training at the Accademia di Belle Arti in Rome and the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris.

Macario Vitalis left the Philippines for the United States in 1917, studying at the California School of Fine Arts and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts.

In 1926, he moved to Paris to train at the Académie des Beaux-Arts de Montmartre.

After studying literature and history at Harvard University, Fernando Zóbel returned to the Philippines in 1951, where he collected works by his contemporaries—later donating them to the Ateneo de Manila University.

He eventually founded the Museum of Spanish Abstract Art in Cuenca, Spain.

The exhibition marks the second cycle of the collaborative project between the UP Visayas Museum of Art and Cultural Heritage and the Lopez Museum and Library.

It follows the highly successful first exhibition, The Patrimony of All – Ang Panublion sang Tanan, which featured works by Juan Luna, Félix Resurrección Hidalgo, Fernando Amorsolo, and Juan Arellano.

The two-cycle exhibition project is the brainchild of former Senator Franklin Drilon, with Senator Loren Legarda ensuring government funding. The Iloilo City Government and the Eugenio Lopez Foundation, Inc. are also partners in the project that is a milestone for art and culture at UP Visayas and in the region. (UPV-OICA)