Theodoro Pascual Buenaventura

We pay the highest possible prices for works by Theodoro Pascual Buenaventura

TEODORO PASCUAL BUENAVENTURA

BUENAVENTURA, TEODORO PASCUAL b. Paombong, Bulacan 1 Apr 1863 d. 5 Feb 1950. Painter.

Fatherless at 14, he looked for work in Manila. The mother of Ramon Salas, his employer, saw a copy he

made of a historical painting Much impressed, she sent him to the Escuela Superior de Pintura, Escultura y

Grabado deo Manila. He as a founding teacher of the Universiry of the Philippines (UP) School of Fine Arts,

where he taught, 1909-1935.

Buenaventura is one of the early masters of classic realism. In the Philippines. In 1895 he entered three oils,

Despues del banio (After the Bath), Cabeza del estudio (Head Study), and Estudio de natural (Study From

Life) at the Exposicion Regional de Filipinas. One of the three obtained a bronze medal. In 1899 he opened a

portrait shop in San Jose, Trozo. In many issues of Chizpzos, in July 1908 his Academia de Dibujo y Pintura

was advertised with No 35, San lose, Trozo as address. In 1908, his Ya Vienm (They Are Here) won one of

the silver medals at the exhibition sponsored by the Association Internacional de Artistas.

The bulk of Buenaventura's major works were destroyed during WWII. Most of those preserved are small

landscapes and genre pieces that prove his consummate skills as a realist in the old school. His most popular

works today are the pair of portraits at the Central Bank, of the Philippines, namely, the Portrait of Rufino

Valencia and Portrait of Ramona Valencia. the latter mistakenly identified as the artists mother in Kayamanan.

Both show the artists knack for strongly modeled forms and a sensitive eye for vital features that identify his

sitters. Buenaventura is especially remembered as an art teacher admired by his students, among them, Serifin

Serna, Tomas Bernardo, and Mauro Malaing Santos.

We pay the highest possible prices for works by Theodoro Pascual Buenaventura