35 Facts About Fernando Amorsolo

Fernando Amorsolo y Cueto was a portraitist and painter of rural Philippine landscapes.

Fernando Amorsolo was born on May 30,1892, in Metro Manila.

At the age of 13, Amorsolo became an apprentice to De la Rosa, who would eventually become the advocate and guide to Amorsolo's painting career.

Fernando Amorsolo graduated with medals from the University of the Philippines in 1914.

Fernando Amorsolo taught at the University for 38 years, including 14 years as director of the Art Department.

Still through the Zobel grant, Fernando Amorsolo was able to travel to New York City, where he encountered postwar impressionism and cubism which would become major influences on his work.

Fernando Amorsolo set up his own studio upon his return to Manila and painted during the 1920s and the 1930s.

Fernando Amorsolo's Rice Planting, which appeared on posters and tourist brochures became one of the most popular images of the Commonwealth of the Philippines.

Fernando Amorsolo avoided creating exact replicas of his trademark themes by recreating the paintings by varying some elements.

Fernando Amorsolo served as the director of the University of the Philippine's College of Fine Arts from 1938 to 1952.

Fernando Amorsolo underwent a cataract operation when he was 70 years old, a surgery that did not impede him from drawing and painting.

Fernando Amorsolo was a close friend of the Philippine sculptor Guillermo Tolentino, the creator of Filipino patriot Andres Bonifacio's monument in Caloocan.

Fernando Amorsolo used natural light in his paintings and developed the backlighting technique, Chiaroscuro, which became his artistic trademark and his greatest contribution to Philippine painting.

In 2018, the National Museum of the Philippines officially identified Fernando Amorsolo's last known painting of an unfinished creative work of the late Florencia "Nena" Singson Gonzalez-Belo, wife of Enrique Belo and mother of Vicki Belo.

Fernando Amorsolo was an incessant sketch artist, often drawing sketches at his home, at Luneta Park, and in the countryside.

Fernando Amorsolo drew the people he saw around him, from farmers to city-dwellers coping with the Japanese occupation.

Fernando Amorsolo's figures were not completely finished but were mere "suggestions" of the image.

Fernando Amorsolo painted a series of historical paintings on pre-Colonial and Spanish Colonization events.

Fernando Amorsolo's Making of the Philippine Flag, in particular, was widely reproduced.

Fernando Amorsolo consulted with the Philippine scholars of the time, H Pardo de Tavera and Epifanio de los Santos.

Fernando Amorsolo painted the wedding picture of Don Mariano Garchitorena and Dona Caridad Pamintuan of Pampanga.

Fernando Amorsolo did a portrait of American Senator Warren Grant Magnuson, of the Democratic Party from Washington, whom the Warren G Magnuson Health Sciences Building at the University of Washington, and the Warren G Magnuson Clinical Center at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland are named after.

Fernando Amorsolo has been accused of succumbing to commercialism and merely producing souvenir paintings for American soldiers.

Four days after his death, Fernando Amorsolo was posthumously honored as the first National Artist of the Philippines at the Cultural Center of the Philippines.

The volume of paintings, sketches, and studies of Fernando Amorsolo is believed to have reached more than 10,000 pieces.

In 2003, Amorsolo's children founded the Fernando C Amorsolo Art Foundation, which is dedicated to preserving Fernando Amorsolo's legacy, promoting his style and vision, and preserving a national heritage through the conservation and promotion of his works.

Since the 2000s, works by Fernando Amorsolo have achieved record prices at auction with the growth of the Philippine art market.

In 1972, Fernando Amorsolo became the first Filipino to be distinguished as the Philippine's National Artist in Painting.

Fernando Amorsolo was named as the "Grand Old Man of Philippine Art" during the inauguration of the Manila Hilton's art center, where his paintings were exhibited on January 23,1969.

In 1948 an Fernando Amorsolo exhibit was sponsored by the Art Association of the Philippines in the National Museum.

In 1950, Fernando Amorsolo exhibited two more historical paintings, Faith Among the Ruins and Baptism of Rajah Humabon at the Missionary Art Exhibit in Rome.

Fernando Amorsolo's art was featured in a 2007 exhibition in Havana.

Fernando Amorsolo then met and lived with common-law wife, Virginia Guevarra Santos, with whom he had three children, namely Manuel, Jorge and Norma before he met his would-be second wife, Maria del Carmen.

In 1935, Fernando Amorsolo married Maria del Carmen who gave him eight more children.

Fernando Amorsolo's reputation was growing as fast as his brood and his work was more than enough to provide for his rather large family.