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JC signed and dated 1950 (lower right) 28" x 22" (71 cm x 56 cm) PROPERTY FROM THE GAUDENCIO BRASEROS LONTOK OF LIPA COLLECTION Acquired directly from the Artist, and from thence by descent to his daughter Criselda Lontok Fernandez Not too many people realize that Hernando R. Ocampo was not only a painter but also a writer and a journalist. He would be the editor of the Manila Chronicle’s Sunday Magazine from 1950 to 1953 as well as radio show producer and a movie scriptwriter. He was also an active member of the “civil society” of that time, participating not only in the Art Association of the Philippines and the Philippine Art Gallery as well as the Boy Scouts and the Community Chest. His interest in the brotherhood of man is evident in the work “JC” which is a capsule history of this civic organization, the Jaycees, in the Philippines. The Philippine Jaycees, or the Junior Chamber International Philippines, was formally founded in 1948 in Manila. In a year’s time, it had spread like wildfire, and would have 22 chapters in all the major cities of the country. Its first national convention was ion 1949, and Ramon V. del Rosario would be elected the first president. In short order, by 1950, the Philippines had so impressed the international Jaycee organization that it was agreed that the 5th World Congress would take place in Manila — Mr. del Rosario would be voted in as the first Filipino world president. It was in step with the mood of Manila in the mid- century: Boundless energy and optimism. Mr. Gaudencio “Didi” Braseros Lontok was the prototypical Jaycee, young, talented, and enterprising — and eager to take his rightful place in the arena of international business. (He was engaged in putting together deals for American sanitary paper products.) The entrepreneur collected and drove sports cars, often at a breakneck pace around Batangas. Both Braseros and Lontok are old families from what was once the coffee capital of the world. Guadencio was one of the founders of the Jaycee chapter in Lipa City; and was also involved in the milestone 1950 World Congress. This unique piece would pass on directly to his daughter, the noted fashion designer Criselda Lontok Fernandez. For the work at hand, created in that momentous year, HR Ocampo’s official biographer, Angel de Jesus, would call this period as pivotal. It was after all at the very boundary of HR’s ‘proletarian’ period immediately post-war and what HR would call his “transitional” period. In this era, HR would present figurative works but with “faces without features to depict a certain universal humanity.” It would be in tune with the message of brotherly love portrayed in this work. In line with HR’s artistic progression, de Jesus would recount that Ocampo would simplify figures and natural objects, “eliminating details of the human anatomy, disregarding perspective and his forms became increasingly distorted. HR would thus become the Philippines’ foremost proponent of the use of color, and certainly its most expert. In “JC”, the hues are true to this period, with his recognizable greens, reds and blues of the time. Its timeless motifs make it a moving classic.