By Norma Hennessy

So often a genius lies behind anonymity, nestled in the shadows to remain unknown then forgotten. Just another lifetime, no different from the others, save perhaps, masterful creations for legacy that may, by luck carry one's name onto future time of reckoning.

Francisco Ibaņez was no stranger to that bare reality. He was born on October 10, 1919 in Sampaloc, Manila and held a degree of BS Fine Arts from the University of Santo Tomas in 1941. He was a pioneer master crayonist utilizing the all-too-ordinary school crayons on ordinary Manila paper to create artwork of exception finish and brilliant workmanship.

I remember him doggedly working within the confines of this thatched lean-to abode in remote San Isidro, Abra, in Luzon's Cordillera during the mid-eighties. Almost masochistically, he pushed his frail, aged physique and failing eyesight to the edge in order to crate. It was almost a heroic feat. Realistically, it must have been. An artist pursuing the finer points in life in a place where sheer survival was the norm that's meted out only by harsh toiling, is at best ironic. This poor and dreary tobacco town in the heart of a rugged terrain where life has not moved away from the rustic 18th century mode of existence did not take well to any attempt at sophistication or social pretensions. Culture was basic and down to earth and life's context was lived at its core - birth, procreation and death. Art awareness and appreciation was limited to Ilocano "Tikong ken Tikang" - a stage satire during town fiestas and radio soaps aired from the neighbouring provincial town of Vigan, Ilocos Sur.

An artist at heart, he nevertheless continued to paint and sketch profiles. Patrons were scarce and the few out-of-town patrons who sat for portraits, haggled to squeeze the price down, barely enough to cover the actual cost of materials with the artist's effort often taken gratis.

Painstakingly he plodded at each art piece in silence. In life's often unforgiving terms, he lived by his choice, determined to toughen it out even accepting its circumstantial indignities.

At seventy, he had had seen better days. His stars shown bright while living in the metropolis before the country's political upheaval in the early eighties. He worked as painter and draftsman for the US navy from 1945-1949 and as a respected commercial artist for the Manila Publishing Company in 1950-1958. The sixties and early seventies brought him into the same halls where the country's rich and famous circulated. His paintings won countless awards and his crayola portraits earned him assignments from the Metropolitan Mania's upper crust, society matrons as well as art collectors both locally and overseas.

During the late seventies, he was forced to reconsider his options. Most of his patrons fled the country and sought residence overseas. Although city-born and bread, his devotion to his former model and wife - Elisabeth led him to decide to take up residence in his wife's hometown in Abra. The city's social scene was suddenly swamped with a new breed of elitists from previous political parties, who were intent on snubbing the likes of those who were previously in familiar terms with the fleeing social upper crust. With most of his patrons gone, so did his hope of added financial prospects. This simply strengthened his resolve to retire in the province hoping that his lifetime savings was adequate enough to start up a business of a small store.

Inevitably, financial constraints soon followed. Too old to take up farming, he returned to the pursuit of the trade that he was good at. Art was the only trade that he knew and discovered too late that his art had no niche with the local residents' lives. He took to traveling to the neighbouring capital of Bangued and tried his luck knocking on doors at the Capitol where the higher provincial government officials who were abreast with cosmopolitan living held their offices. His efforts rewarded him with patrons for portraiture. Once again, art took precedence in his life until his death on January 12, 1997.

His later works, done within five years prior to his death showed richness of colour and matured finesse. The technique has reached the level of perfection that showed itself more distinctly in the still life and landscapes that were eventually commissioned to him by Norma Hennessy, another artist.

webmaster RC 
20 February 2000