BenCab: Master of Mediums
Known for his depictions of “Sabel,” the archetypal type of underrepresented and marginalized Filipinos, Benedicto Reyes “BenCab” Cabrera cemented his name and his art in the Philippines and beyond, meriting himself the title of National Artist for Visual Arts (Painting) in 2006. BenCab was born on April 10, 1942, and displayed an artistic shrewdness at an early age, selling illustrations to his high school classmates; occasionally, he sold portraits of James Dean and Elvis Presley for a higher price to augment his allowance.1 BenCab’s youthhood in Bambang, Manila, had a decisive influence on his work as an artist. He saw with great clarity the miserable state of common Filipino folk. In 1962, he received his first critical acclaim as an artist for his work Blue Serenity, a surrealist depiction of a Filipino shanty (“barung-barong” or improvised houses), which won him second prize in the Shell National Students Art Competition. In 1959, he enrolled at the University of the Philippines’ College of Fine Arts (Major in Illustration). Still, he left in 1963 before finishing his degree to work as a full-time layout artist at the United States Information Service.
He moved to London in 1969 to live with his then-wife Caroline Kennedy for fifteen years. BenCab took advantage of his geographical proximity to the great artworks of Western civilization by touring Europe “to see original paintings and sculptures that he had only seen, as yet, as reproductions in books and magazines.”2 Gradually, he garnered praise and respect from international peers and exhibited in dozens of countries, most notably England. In 1986, he decided to settle in Baguio City, Philippines where he founded the Baguio Arts Guild—a group at “the forefront of the regional art movements in the country”—with Santiago Bose, Roberto Villanueva, and Kidlat Tahimik, among others.3
BenCab’s artistic trajectory
His sojourn in London lasted from 1969 to 1986, and it was during his fifteen years away from the Philippines that he acquired his patriotic sentiments against Spanish and American colonization, intensifying especially in the years of Martial Law in the Philippines from 1972 to 1986. He depicts colonial images with modern twists, such as his famous Brown Brothers’ Burden (1972) featuring two indios carrying a white man on a palanquin, which ultimately “questioned the Filipino’s passivity at acculturation.”4 Caroline Kennedy said that, in his years away from the Philippines, BenCab’s “paintings were becoming more ‘Filipino’ and less influenced by European art.”5 The Filipino-American poet Luis Francia wrote in his memoirs, “In London, BenCab quickly realized that if he followed what was current in Western art, he would always be a second-rate artist, since the impulse for such art didn’t come from within, wasn’t part of his skin.”6
Thus, BenCab’s artistic thrust embarked on postcolonial themes, culminating in his acclaimed “Larawan” series, exhibited in 1972 at the Luz Gallery in Manila. This sent massive ripples across the Philippine art landscape, so much so that BenCab is credited for “starting the trend of using colonial images as visual artifacts with contemporary ramifications” [emphasis added].7 BenCab disclosed that the figure who had the greatest influence on his art was the German Kathe Kollwitz, for themes especially “dealing with the lower classes—like beggars, scavengers, and laborers—and the mother-and-child theme.”8 In any case, this thematic mark which saturated his artistic production was not done simply to criticize the general Filipino tendency to sympathize with the cultural imperialism of the United States. “In 1978, when interviewed in London, Bencab declared: ‘To comment on the social situation of our country is not the reason why I paint.’ He proceeded to explain how, for example, in his Sabel paintings he was primarily interested in the figure of this real-life scavenger as a device on which he could anchor a composition” [emphasis added].9
This means that the sociopolitical commentaries embedded in his works are simultaneous with his subject matter preference, but are in no way the primary intention or driving force behind his creative productions. For his tremendous facility to represent the delicious irony of colonial remnants in the Philippines, Alice Guillermo declared that BenCab ought to be considered the “forerunner of Philippine social realism,” a term for an artistic movement Guillermo herself coined.10 Philippine social realism is the movement that emerged in the late 1970s in which art’s function is seen “as an agent of social change and as an instrument for liberation.”11 The Filipino art critic Patrick Flores remarked on what qualified the “social” aspect of social realism: “Realism, here, is both a pedagogical and polemical modality through which the truth about a condition and its urgency are brought into the open so as to elicit spirited engagement and partisan action… But the social requires more; it spurs the artist to advance ‘alternatives’.”12 This is what BenCab’s artworks adroitly display with such penetrating visions of human reality inseparable from its socio-historical conditions.
A decisive figure in Philippine art
BenCab was again featured in a recent exhibit Chances of Contact, a joint project by the Singapore Tyler Print Institute (STPI) and The Metropolitan Museum of Manila (The M), curated by Patrick Flores, running from August 23 through October 26, 2024, at The M. The Chances of Contact exhibit presents “the diligent exploration of art forms and their potential” by displaying the multitude of possible art forms emerging from what Flores called “inter-media forms.”13 The contact and mingling of various mediums breeds a new art form altogether which “anticipates a medium yet to be named.”14 However, the general medium featured in the exhibit was the STPI’s handmade paper pulp. This medium was not foreign to BenCab since he was introduced to handmade paper as early as 1986. Printmaking, even earlier: “BenCab’s return in 1972 for two years was a boon to young printmakers, as he worked at the PAP which had just transferred to Jorge Bocobo street in Ermita. It was there where he had some of his first Larawan etchings editioned. During the Marcos martial law regime, he produced works with strong political commentary.”15 In 2005, he was invited by STPI for a month-long workshop on paper pulp painting, a medium that found a place in the National Artist’s repertory of techniques and modalities.16
His featured work, Lovers (2010), was made with pigmented paper pulp done on STPI handmade paper. The work offers a stylistic twist to two lovers locked in an intimate embrace. Motifs from his depictions of Sabel are undoubtedly adopted: the large and loose clothing that nearly eclipses the figures, the relaxed yet firm and intentional strokes, and the subjects in motion mid-dance. Echoing the archetypal depiction of two lovers, such as Rembrandt’s The Jewish Bride (c. 1665), Pierre-Auguste Cot’s Springtime (1873), and Auguste Rodin’s The Kiss (c. 1888), among others, BenCab depicts the eternal youth, vigor, and freshness of love. “Similar to his Sabel works, Bencab retains a strong thematic interest in the undulating materiality of cloth and human attire.”17 The subjects are likely donned in 50s outfits given the man’s loose-fitting clothing and the woman’s knee-length dress—surely a sketch of “modernist time through post-war figuration.”18 In keeping with his anti-colonial sensibilities, BenCab’s decision to employ American garbs is a subtle hint of Filipino passivity to the continuous onslaught of Western influence.
Opting out of his characteristic implementation of traditional Filipino clothing (particularly the quintessential Sabelian “baro’t saya,” blouse and skirt), BenCab evokes vivid imagery of the Filipino’s idealization of all things Western.19 His distinctive approach to portraying his subjects with Cordilleran qualities—“broad faces, rounded limbs and torsos, heavy feet”—betray the identity of the subjects: Filipinos dwelling in a moment’s intimacy enveloped by American attire.20 More, his frequent depiction of Sabel in white garments starkly contrasts with Lovers, which shows that the complementarity of blue and yellow veers away from the purity of Sabel’s white clothing. It is an allusion, perhaps, to the dignity and purity of the Filipino free from the stain of foreign domination, the residues of which have yet to subside.
Finally, on the point of printmaking, BenCab’s Lovers is a unique print—only one such work was made, opposing the frequent characterization of printmaking as a democratization of art. In BenCab’s piece, “ the issue of transformation within the tradition of these forms is linked to either orthodoxy, on the one hand, and novelty, on the other,” which makes for a tasteful mix of new and old—not just in artistic style and the artistic movement that this work inhabits—but also its positioning as a work that challenges the common notions about printmaking.21 But in general, BenCab viewed printmaking as “an additional opportunity for [him] not only to explore the possibilities of another medium but also to pursue his exercises in composition.”22
Though such descriptive features may be drawn from BenCab’s Lovers, it is important to remember that his primary intention in creating art is not to comment and pass judgment on colonial influence or the nature of printmaking.23 To be sure, the work is embedded with such sociopolitical remarks, and it is an inescapable concern of BenCab. Nevertheless, it would seem that BenCab’s Lovers is a personal attempt to search the depths of the human heart, particularly that word-and-thought-defying experience of human love. His sixteen-year marriage with Caroline Kennedy, which terminated in 1986, echoes through all four corners of this piece and reaches out to captivate the viewer’s own heart. As such, BenCab shows he is not only a master of art but more so a master observer of the human condition.
A short biography of BenCab
Benedicto Reyes “BenCab” Cabrera was born on April 10, 1942, in the middle of the Second World War at the height of the Japanese Occupation of Manila (1941-1944). At six months old, his family moved to Santa Cruz, Manila, from Malabon, Manila. Early on, he showed a propensity for art, and his brother, Salvador Cabrera (b. 1929), who was already a well-known artist, helped him cultivate his inchoate artistic talent. Attending high school at Arellano, he would sell drawings to his classmates for a meager sum. Soon after, he enrolled at the College of Fine Arts of the University of the Philippines, but abandoned the prospect of earning a degree when he took on a full-time job as a layout artist at the United States Information Service.
The year 1964 was a turning point since this was the year he conceptualized his famous depictions of “Sabel.” From his window he observed a taong grasa (a homeless madwoman and scavenger). “To him she is a symbol of dislocation, despair and isolation—the personification of human dignity threatened by circumstances. Undergoing numerous transformations over the coming years, she becomes a landmark for every stylistic painting transition” in his vocation as an artist.24
Having met Caroline Kennedy in 1966, the two became a couple not long after. In 1969, they moved to London, England, and started a family. It was in England that BenCab started to experiment with different styles and methods, including printmaking. Summing up his experience there, Kennedy said that his “London years were his most varied, most challenging, and most artistically successful.”25 After collecting Filipiniana paraphernalia among the flea markets of Chelsea, BenCab acquired a patriotic yearning for his homeland. This phase reached its culminating phase in 1972 with his celebrated exhibition “Larawan.” There he showcased his works, based on old photographs, which “took on the form of social commentaries on the influences of American and Spanish colonizers.”26 With this monumental exhibit in the Luz Gallery of Manila, BenCab solidified himself to be the forerunner of Philippine social realism.27
BenCab and Kennedy divorced in 1986, which prompted his return to the Philippines. The same year, he established, together with a few other artists, the Baguio Arts Guild.28 In 2006, then-President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo awarded BenCab the Order of National Artist for Visual Arts (Painting). With the aim of promoting art, preserving and conserving the environment, BenCab established the BenCab Museum in 2009.29 Thereafter, BenCab has been consistently making art of the most varied forms with increasing pace and intensity even as an octogenarian. The year 2025 will mark another milestone in his career as he celebrates his sixtieth anniversary as an artist.
BenCab Museum, “National Artist,” https://www.bencabmuseum.org/national-artist/
Ananke, “The Fascinating World of Caroline Kennedy,” Ananke, October 18, 2016, https://anankemag.com/2016/10/18/the-fascinating-world-of-caroline-kennedy/
BenCab Museum, “National Artist”; Luis Francia, Eye of the Fish: A Personal Archipelago (New York: Kaya Press, 2001), 54.
Imelda Cajipe-Endaya, “Brown Brothers’ Burden,” Cultural Center of the Philippines Encyclopedia of Philippine Art, 1994, https://epa.culturalcenter.gov.ph/3/82/2153/
Ananke, “Caroline Kennedy.”
Francia, Eye of the Fish, 53.
Delfin Tolentino Jr., 13 Painters for the 21st Century, ed. Ana Labrador (Quezon City: Sikat Books Publishing, Inc., 2000), 46.
Alice Guillermo, “BenCab,” in Cultural Center of the Philippines Encyclopedia of Philippine Art, vol. 5, 2nd ed. (Pasay City: Cultural Center of the Philippines, 2017), 556.
Tolentino, 13 Painters for the 21st Century, 48.
León Gallery, “The Magnificent September Auction 2022,” León Gallery, https://leon-gallery.com/auctions/lot/The-Magnificent-September-Auction-2022/50/67
Alice Guillermo, Social Realism in the Philippines (Manila: ASPHODEL Books, 1987), 9.
Patrick Flores, “Social Realism: The Turns of the Term in the Philippines,” Afterall 48 (2019): 83. https://doi.org/10.1086/706129
Patrick Flores, “Chances of Contact,” Chances of Contact: Contemporary Prints from the Philippines and Singapore, The Metropolitan Museum of Manila, Taguig City, Philippines, August 24, 2024 to October 26, 2024.
Patrick Flores, “Across Mediums,” Chances of Contact: Contemporary Prints from the Philippines and Singapore, The Metropolitan Museum of Manila, Taguig City, Philippines, August 24, 2024 to October 26, 2024.
Imelda Cajipe-Endaya, “TIRADA: Potential, Potency & Women Printmakers,” in Tirada: 50 Years of Philippine Printmaking 1968-2018 (Pasay City: Cultural Center of the Philippines, 2020), 30.
BenCab Museum, “National Artist.”
Christie’s, “Benedicto Reyes Cabrera (BenCab),” Christie’s, https://www.christies.com/en/lot/lot-5514550
Patrick Flores, “Between Generations,” Chances of Contact: Contemporary Prints from the Philippines and Singapore, The Metropolitan Museum of Manila, Taguig City, Philippines, August 24, 2024 to October 26, 2024.
Francia, Eye of the Fish, 50. BenCab relates a story from his time at the United States Information Service: “I remember this one writer—he had been with the service for a while—who was telling me how he felt about two officers. One was a white American, the other was a short, dark Filipino. This writer said, look at us, we're so ugly. He could hardly wait to immigrate to the United States: If you worked for the service for fifteen years, the come-on was you could go to America.”
Francia, Eye of the Fish, 53.
Patrick Flores, “The Strike of Print,” in Tirada: 50 Years of Philippine Printmaking 1968-2018 (Pasay City: Cultural Center of the Philippines, 2020), 18.
Tolentino, 13 Artists for the 21st Century, 48.
Tolentino, 13 Artists for the 21st Century, 48.
BenCab Museum, “National Artist.”
Ananke, “Caroline Kennedy.”
Guillermo, “BenCab,” 566.
Tolentino, 13 Painters for the 21st Century, 46.
Guillermo, “BenCab,” 566; BenCab Museum, “National Artist.”
BenCab Museum, “Museum & Galleries,” https://www.bencabmuseum.org/museum-galleries/