19/09/2026
On September 19, 1914, Simplicia "Nena" Laconico Saguil was born in Santa Cruz, Laguna, to Epifanio Saguil and Remedios Laconico. Her father was a private physician to Commonwealth President, Manuel L. Quezon. She was one of ten children.
She was a modernist and abstract painter well known for her cosmic, organic, and spiritual abstract works depicting internal landscapes of feeling and imagination. For these, Saguil is considered a pioneer of Filipino abstract art.
Raised in a conservative Catholic household, Nena rejected the Catholic school education her parents desired for her. She received her education at University of the Philippines School of Fine Arts where she studied under Fernando Amorsolo, a conservative painter and teacher. She graduated from UP in 1933 with a Certificate in Painting. She received her undergraduate degree in 1949, after the Philippines gained its independence following the end of World War II.
Saguil's first solo exhibition occurred in 1950 at the newly opened Philippine Art Gallery where she met with modernist artists like Vicente Manansala, Hernando Ruiz Ocampo, Arturo Luz, Romeo Tabuena, Anita Magsaysay-Ho and Fernando Zobel de Ayala. In his review of the 7th Annual Art Association of the Philippines exhibition, Fernando Zobel de Ayala declared that the Filipino "moderns ... seemed to carry the day both in quantity and quality." Among them, he praised the Saguil and Victor Oteyza for the originality of their works. This network of Filipino modernist artists to which Saguil belonged became known as the "Neo-Realist Group".
In 1954, at the age of 40, Saguil left the Philippines for Spain after receiving a scholarship to study abstract painting. Two years later, she moved to Paris to continue her studies at the Ecole des Artes Americane.
For almost two decades, she pursued her art while living a reclusive life in a small Paris apartment and working housekeeping and other odd jobs to support herself, rather than return to her family, friends and the comfortable life she lived back home.
Her first European solo exhibit happened in Paris in 1957 at the Galerie Raymond Creuze and featured her new abstract style of lines and geometric shapes. Along with Vicente Manansala, Saguil also exhibited at the 1958 Spanish-American Biennale in Cuba.
Upon her return to the Philippines in 1968, Saguil exhibited at the Solidaridad Galleries, showcasing her abstract style and establishing herself as a leading abstractionist in the country.
Later in life, Saguil would become a Jehovah's Witness. Nena who never married, died in Paris in February 1994 but her recognition continued to expand. She was soon honored with memorial exhibitions at the Lopez Museum in 1995, at the Cultural Center of the Philippines in 1997, and at the Ateneo Art Gallery in 2003. Finally, she was awarded a Presidential Medal of Merit in 2006 by President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, for contribution to Filipino art and culture.
Several galleries honored Saguil too with posthumous exhibitions, including the Lopez Museum, the Cultural Center of the Philippines, and the Ateneo Art Gallery. The Ateneo Art Gallery's 2003 exhibit, Landscapes and Inscapes: From the Material World to the Spiritual, was accompanied by a book of the same name.
https://kahimyang.com/kauswagan/articles/2848/today-in-philippine-history-september-19-1914-nena-saguil-a-pioneer-in-filipino-abstract-art-was-born-in-santa-cruz-laguna
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