The art of Dr. Toribio Herrera

An important art exhibit opened last Friday, July 24, at the Upper Gallery of the GSIS Museum of Art on Diosdado Macapagal Avenue in Pasay City. Billed as “MediSining: The Art of Toribio Herrera, MD,” it features the works of a relatively unknown stalwart of early Philippine painting, one who was part of the group of Filipino genre masters of the 1920s that included Fernando Amorsolo and Domingo Castañeda.

Toribio Herrera was born in Tondo and graduated with a degree in Medicine from UST in 1912. He took a second course to earn a Fine Arts degree from UP. As a physician, Dr. Herrera’s intimate understanding of human anatomy made him the school’s most prominent teacher of that subject, as well as of perspective.

He served as a meticulous mentor to generations of UP Fine Arts students, including Vicente Manansala, Carlos Francisco, Cesar Legaspi, Napoleon Abueva, Jose Joya, Abdulmari Imao and Federico Aguilar Alcuaz, who all became National Artists. Other notable visual artists who came under his tutelage were the painter Araceli Dans and the popular cartoonist Lauro Alcala.

Ironically, in his lifetime, Dr. Herrera never exhibited his works in public, eschewing monetary rewards for his art. He never attempted to sell a painting while he lived. The first exhibition of his works was held in 1972, four years after his death.

Now, 37 years later, his available works and memorabilia are again showcased as a tribute to the doctor who became an excellent painter of classic rural scenes. Among his favorite subjects were countryside images: mountains, rivers, brooks, flowers, women traversing dirt roads during the rainy season, lavanderas, and ladies formally clad in a terno.

One of the paintings on exhibit is Herrera’s classic “Monsoon Rain,” a 20” by 26 5/8” oil on canvas dated 1955. It shows his full mastery of human anatomy, as manifested by the twisting torso and backside of a woman buffeted by strong winds.

“After Mass,” a 16” by 12” oil on lawanit, dated 1951, shows a lady in a terno, with a parasol shielding her head and shoulders from the harsh sun. The interplay of glorious sunlight and moving shadows, also seen in the parallel images of a young girl covering her face with a fan and a woman vendor in salakot seated on the church patio, both in the background, suggests that Dr. Herrera was a peer of the great Amorsolo in more ways than one. Masterful too in terms of composition is the inclusion, almost as a mysterious afterthought, of a man wearing a dark hat who has just emerged from behind a large central pillar

Another painting, also owned by the Herrera Family Estate, whose date is ineligible but is likely to also be circa 1950s, is “Virginal Lagoon,” an 18 7/8” x 26 1/16” oil on canvas, depicting a shimmering waterscape with attendant sunlit glory gently assaulting tropical vegetation.

If only for these three obra maestras, a visit to the GSIS gallery should be well worth it. The exhibit also includes Dr. Herrera’s old photographs, medical paraphernalia, as well as art materials that were saved when his original house was burned.

Curated by Raymundo Andres V. Palad and Mary Ann Venturina-Bulanadi, it runs until November 30. One may call 479-3588 or email: museum@gsis.gov.ph for inquiries.  

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Hey, Kobe Bryant breezed by last week. And I didn’t get an invite to reprise the kind of intelligent questioning (on his special diet, heh heh) I subjected the megastar to the last time out.

Okay, it’s understandable, since his sponsors may have taken my usual take on the NBA Finals MVP a little too seriously, as when I wrote an essay titled “Loathing the Lakers” for the June issue of Rogue magazine. Well, that didn’t exactly ring any death knell, did it — as Phil Jackson’s boys went on to win the darned ring anyway.  

Serious students of emo prose should have noted irony in the proceedings. Besides, I did say I wanted my boy LeBron to go through Kobe, while urging the Lakers on to the Finals. That they did get there and made much of it, while my Cavs sputtered sans a Shaq against the Magic, was my comeuppance as a prophet, but is now history.

In any case, it was enjoyable to have Kobe again at Boni High St. and the PhilSports arena where he certainly wowed a legion of kiddos and oldies, except me. Good thing my buddy Igan D’Bayan, a hoops aficionado turned masterful painter, was there to record it all.

There’s also been some drumbeating on the possibility that when Kobe pushes on to Singapore, he could join a putative Asian league selection in a 20-minute (live game minutes, that is) exhibition against the Singapore Slingers. And that Pinoy coach Louie Alas might get to handle that selection. Which means Kobe Bryant slides down, or up, from the hands of the venerable Zen master, the NBA’s “winningest,” to those of a coach of the old Azcarraga cum Muralla tradition.

Well and good. And after those 20 game minutes of fame, I suggest that Alas should also be given the reins of the Philippine national team, cuz Yeng Guiao, vice governor of Pampanga, is just about the most overrated basketball coach in the local scene.

Now, I don’t say this out of any Monday morning quarterbacking hindsight, just because our pro selection got clobbered in the Jones Cup. You won’t believe me after my Cavs forecast fiasco, but I knew that that would happen even before Jayjay Helterbrand, Mick Pennisi and Cyrus Baguio enplaned for Taipei a day after San Miguel’s sweet Game 7 triumph over Ginebra for yet another PBA crown.

Make that well before, as in so very long ago, when it was first announced that vice-gov. Guiao would handle the pro selection. I knew those nationals would be shown up in any respectable prep tourney. Why? Because Yeng Guiao has only made a career of standing on the sidelines with arms folded, with a serious mien that reeks of intended gravitas.

Oh, legendary too has been the quick temper that has earned him more than a fair share of technicals, and led to verbal and nearly physical tussles After a game with officials as well as players of an opposing team. Giving the finger in public has been another trademark for this bench tactician.

As a prinsipeng di ngumimingiti, he even turned down a proposal to have Serbian coach Rajko Toroman join his national team staff as a scout. Of course he had earlier denounced the hiring of a foreign coach for the counterpart amateur selection also pursuing that ghost of an Olympic dream for Philippine basketball.

Actually, both sides should forget that dream already, and just save the money for more attainable goals. No way we’ll ever make it back to the Olympics, not with an already aging Asi Taulava or a still fledgling Japeth Aguilar at center, and with a local coach.   

What I’d bet my bottom Euro on is that Toroman’s selection will beat Guiao’s four of seven times if not better, should that dream match-up series ever be served up. You think I’m kidding? Well, we can hark back to Ron Jacobs’ glory days when his bunch of disciplined, well-drilled amateurs proved more than a match against pro teams.

A better coach is a better coach. And Toroman is a much better coach than Guiao ever was or will be. That is why I told everyone who cared to listen that the RP team that’s been shamed in Taipei would be lucky to even beat the Taiwan B selection. Well, if we don’t, then it’s really the pits for this national team.

Sure, bad luck has been a dark hound, what with injuries to key players Helterbrand and Ryan Reyes. But the addition of these two point guards wouldn’t have made much difference in Taipei, nor would it in the next, all-important qualifying tourney in China.

It’s simply badly handled. Look at Guiao’s PBA team. Does it ever play defense? The coach is just so full of himself that all he does is spout philosophy after every defeat. And if you rack up Guiao’s win-loss stats over the past few years, that’s a lot of philosophy that’s been spouted.

Maybe it’s because he’s a politician first, and a coach only second. Maybe he’s the PBA’s counterpart for ex-Congressman Prospero Pichay, another multi-tasking pol who’s only succeeded in throwing a spanner in what we already thought was the successful termination of unification efforts for Philippine basketball. For a while there, FIBA started acting up on us again, thanks to the senatorial loser with a pugnacious jaw that he should just bankroll Mindanao boxing events instead of national basketball or chess.

Before the Jones Cup started, my patriotic if realistic wish was for us to beat both of the Taiwan selections plus Japan and maybe Korea. That way we wind up a lofty fifth or sixth in the tourney. Losses to the Middle Eastern teams were a foregone conclusion, since we haven’t become better from the last time we faced them.

Now we even have a coach of questionable ability. And we’ve already lost to Taiwan A, Japan and Korea. So we wind up as the doormat, thanks to philosophical politicians, inclusive of the PBA honchos who just had to select one as a national coach.

Hey, guys, check out Norman Black’s rotations and Big D. That’s the way one should coach. It may just be a varsity league, but sweeping the UAAP seems well within sight for the defending champs. Well, maybe they’ll have a bit of a challenge courtesy of this year’s hosts’ determination and “national team” stalwarts, who are really quite good.

Still and all, teamwork is teamwork. Maybe Guiao and Pichay should team up and start their own league. Then we can all sit back and listen with amusement as they rationalize their unified nationalist philosophy.