Martino Abellana Art Exhibit

CEBU, Philippines – Considering the depth and scope of Martino Abellana's influence on Cebu's present-day artists, some of whom have made a name for themselves not just in Cebu but on the national and international art scenes, a retrospective exhibition is a fitting tribute.

Starting today, January 29, the Sacred Heart School-Boys (SHS-B) Batch 1985 Foundation and SM City Cebu hold an art exhibition dubbed "The World Through the Eyes of Martino Abellana," a retrospective exhibition on the life and art of Martino Abellana. The exhibit formally opens at 6 p.m. in the Northwing Atrium of SM City Cebu.

Martino Abellana, fondly called "Noy Tinong" is one of the grand old men in Cebu's arts scene. Born on January 30, 1914, in his hometown in Carcar, he became an educator by profession, and taught at the then Cebu Institute of Technology when it was just a cluster of Quonset huts on Ramos Street. Then he pursued a career in the arts, finishing his formal art education at the School of Fine Arts of the University of the Philippines Manila. Among his teachers were the famous masters Fernando Amorsolo and Guillermo Tolentino.

As an undergraduate, he helped his brother Ramon conceptualized the famous Carcar landmark, "Rotunda," by making sketches. He facilitated the local development of art in Cebu together with his contemporary painter and friend Professor Julian Jumalon, and helped found the Fine Arts program at University of the Philippines College Cebu, where he left his greatest legacy by influencing an entire generation of Cebuano painters.

Martino Abellana died in the latter half of the '80s. The great artist is remembered with the holding of the Martino Abellana Annual Art Competition in Cebu.

"The World Through the Eyes of Martino Abellana" showcases over a hundred of his original works now owned by Cebuano collectors, friends, and immediate family of the artist. The exhibit offers Cebuanos a look back on the 60 long years of Abellana's career, in order to better appreciate his legacy to the course of art in Cebu.

The art exhibit runs until February 28.