Botong Francisco

Biography

The mural “500 Years of Progress in the Philippines” decorated the main entrance of the first Philippine International Fair in 1953. Newsweek printed it on its centre spread, and Botong Francisco became the first Filipino artist to be covered in that way by an international magazine. The mural can no longer be seen: it was demolished soon after the fair closed.

He was born on 4 November 1912 in Angono, in Rizal province, when the Philippines was under United States administration. His father made wine and died when the boy was about five. Few people in the village could go on studying after school, but Francisco entered the School of Fine Arts of the University of the Philippines, headed by the painter Fabian de la Rosa. Lack of money forced him to leave before graduating, and he went to work. First he was a trainee at the newspaper Philippine Herald, then an illustrator for La Vanguardia and the Manila Tribune. Shortly before the Second World War he was taken on as a teacher at the newly founded faculty of architecture and fine arts of the University of Santo Tomas. When the war began he returned to Angono and joined the local guerrilla movement. After the war he went back to teaching, and at the end of 1947 he left in order to devote himself to painting alone.

In July 1948 his painting “Kaingin” won first prize at the annual exhibition of Philippine art at the National Museum. Commissions followed one after another. He painted murals for private patrons, among them Carmen Planas, José Yulo and Eugenio Lopez, and for public buildings: “Musikong Bumbong” for the Fiesta Pavilion of the Manila Hotel, a bayanihan scene for the Philippine Bank of Commerce, a four-panel mural for the Philippine General Hospital, and the walls of the chapel of Far Eastern University and of Santo Domingo Church.

The subjects of his murals and paintings include the Blood Compact (Sandugo), the First Mass at Limasawa, the martyrdom of Rizal, the invasion of Limahong, fiestas, serenades, a Muslim betrothal and the “Portrait of Purita”. He painted historical scenes above all. The restorer Helmuth Josef Zotter called his art a prime example of linear painting, in which lines and contours look like cutouts. He is also credited with a flawless sense of composition and a lavish use of colour; to my mind, this is already visible in the murals that survive. Francisco was among the first Filipino modernists, together with Galo Ocampo and Victorio Edades, who broke away from the romanticised rural views of Fernando Amorsolo.

In the 1940s and 1950s he also worked in film, chiefly with the director Manuel Conde. He wrote scripts for “Genghis Khan”, “Putol na Kampilan” (1950) and “Tatlong Labuyo” (1953), and designed costumes for “Prinsipe Teñoso” and “Ibong Adarna” (both 1941), “Siete Infantes de Lara” (1950), “Romeo at Julieta” (1951) and the Juan Tamad series. For the 1961 film adaptation of José Rizal’s “Noli Me Tángere” he was production designer.

In 1965 he reported a rock shelter in Angono, and so the Angono Petroglyphs, now well known, were discovered.

Some of the murals suffered heavy damage over the years. “Pageant of Commerce” returned after several years of restoration in 2000. “The Progress of Medicine in the Philippines” was restored for the third time in 2007; the original is in the National Art Gallery of the Philippines, and a high-quality replica hangs in its former place, in the lobby of the Philippine General Hospital.

Francisco died on 31 March 1969 in Angono. His last work, “Camote Diggers”, was left unfinished. In 1973 he was posthumously named a National Artist of the Philippines, the country’s highest honour for an artist.