24/04/2026
5 THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT AMORSOLO. On this day, the 54th anniversary of National Artist Fernando Amorsolo’s death, we share five facts about the “Grand Old Man of Philippine Art”.
1. Another great Filipino artist, Fabian dela Rosa, was his uncle. When Amorsolo was just 11, his father passed away. His mother and the children moved to his uncle’s home in Manila; that uncle was Fabian dela Rosa, who took care of and mentored the young Amorsolo.
2. Amorsolo was the director of the UP School of Fine Arts from 1932 to 1952. During this period, he saw the School of Fine Arts move from Padre Faura to the new UP Diliman campus. Under his directorship, the school primed many outstanding Filipino artists, from National Artists Napoleon Abueva, Larry Alcala, and Federico Aguilar Alcuaz, to noted artists such as Araceli Limcaco-Dans, Roddy Ragadon, and Juvenal Sansó.
3. He was the first National Artist in the Philippines. On January 1969, Amorsolo was the first Filipino to receive the most prestigious award in visual arts from the National Cultural Commission of the Arts (NCCA), paving the way for many others.
4. His works were not solely of fields and farm maidens. Amorsolo was most famous for his bucolic landscapes, but there were many other relevant themes in his paintings, such as the “Burning of Manila”, where in he showed the burning of La Intendencia in Intramuros during the Second World War. Amorsolo sketched bocetos of these scenes live, as he walked around a destroyed Manila. Many of his paintings documented important locations in the country that are now gone, such a this painting of the Baluarte de Santa Barbara (detail) along the Pasig River.
5 Amorsolo’s works are under the ICArE (Initiative for the Continuation of Artist’s Estate) program of Fundacion Sansó in partnership with the Fernando C. Amorsolo Art Foundation and the Rising Sunday Foundation. Seen here is the limited edition giclee “ Man and Woman on Carabao” (detail), launched at the opening of “Amorsolo, Alcala, and Sansó: UP Fine Arts”, an exhibit at Fundacion Sansó.
(Images): Wikimedia Commons (Amorsolo and dela Rosa); Rachelle Medina (painting of Baluarte de Santa Barbara from the Ayala Museum exhibit “Amorsolo: Chroma”), Fundacion Sansó Archives (UP class picture) and the Fundacion Sansó Museum Shop.