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Checkmate signed and dated 2005 (middle right) mixed media 48" x 60" (122 cm x 152 cm) PROVENANCE: Acquired directly from the artist by the present owner Unlocking the Secrets of Our History by LISA GUERRERO NAKPIL John Santos is one of the Philippines’ most important contemporary artists, drawing in his avid Filipino and international audiences to a mysterious but personal narrative — but also to his keenly observed insights into our psyches and our past. The work at hand appears to map a snapshot of the country’s history : Santos papers the work with one of the country’s most pivotal historical works, ‘Kasayaysan ng Bayang Pilipino’ by Teodoro Agoncillo. Agoncillo was the Philippines’ pre-eminent historian whose groundbreaking work on Bonifacio and the Katipunan helped define our history. Chapters on the man have been carefully selected for this work; as have passages on Rizal, the Phil-American War, and even Manuel Roxas. Four characters define the painting : A woman with a dazed expression holding a pamphlet in one hand and a key in another. The key is also lightly held by a man wearing a jester’s hat; he is naked to the waist, a metaphor perhaps of his simplicity and vulnerability. Is he the symbol of ‘bayan’, the everyman Filipino to whom events happen. Two other characters, both ‘kings’, are dressed in what appears to be a military uniform and a ‘cerrada’, a formal civilian jacket. These are the powers that be, the real movers and shakers. But things are also never as they seem in a John Santos painting. In this major work, we find as well an examination of our past and our present; our intentions and reality. José John Santos III has continued to break new ground as an artist. Named as one of the Cultural Center of the Philippines 13 Artists in 2000, he has gone from strength to strength. He exhibited at the The Armory Show, one of the oldest and most important art fairs in the United States. In 2018, the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington D.C. — the modern and contemporary art museum of the Smithsonian Institution which is the national museum of the United States — accepted the donation of the José Santos III sculpture, “The Order of Things No. 3.” This event marked the first time that a Filipino artist, or a Southeast Asian artist for that matter, was accorded this honor.