Edsel H Moscoso (1952-2008)

Antiqueño artist "Totong" Edsel Moscoso died of leukemia on December 21, 2008. He was a great loss not only to the artists, but also to the Antiqueño community. He was a Bugal kang Antique awardee, 1993.

I was first introduced to him at Piedra Restaurant in 2003, when my first book THE RISE OF KINARAY-A. He had been asking around for a copy. He would drop by everytime he was in town.

I took this picture of him in his house in Madrangca in April 2007. It was Binirayan festival, and he invited me and Cecile Locsin Nava to have lunch with him. In August 28, I prepared an opening ritual for his 42nd solo exhibition at the Ayala Museum. He was very enthusiastic about telling me his next would be in Switzerland. No one expected that following exhibit at the UN in Geneva would be his last. His nephew Chad told me he came home from Switzerland very sick.

I wrote about that Ayala Museum show in Kinaray-a, and published it in the souvenir program of the 1st Karay-a Arts Festival in October 2007. Totong was very happy when I gave him a copy. It was the first time he was written about in Kinaray-a.

The last time we saw each other was during the Komedya Fiesta at the University of the Philippines on February 15, 2008. He insisted on paying for the muscovado I bought for him. But those were really from Marlene Liao. He told me he was so inspired by the komedya I directed he wanted to make a komedya series.

He did not show up in Binirayan 2008. He was preparing for his Geneva show. At the 2nd Karay-a Arts Festival in October 2008, somebody told me he was there, sitting under the shade of EBJ Park's very old pine trees. He was wearing a cap, and obviously did not want to be recognized, said my source. He was already very sick at that time.

Edsel was one great artist who was very proud about his roots. On February 11, we will open an exhibit of Edsel's works at the Museo Antiqueño. I went as far as Silay City to borrow his nude sketches from Lyn Gamboa. And as for my own tribute to him, I translated into English that article about his 42nd show "Antiqueños, Homage to my Kasimanwas" at the Ayala Museum.

Totong’s Tribute to Antiqueños

On August 28 to September 10, 2007 perhaps every Antiqueño who have visited Greenbelt Park at Makati has seen the ubiquitous poster boldly titled “Antiqueños.” And perhaps, they have – just as I had – felt a little nostalgic or teary-eyed with joy and pride, and restrained the urge to shout and jump for joy amidst the rush of cosmopolitans going to and from work or the malls. To find “Antiqueños” in the posh and upmarket mall complex in Makati City is almost unthinkable.

“Antiqueños: Homage to my Kasimanwas” was the 42nd solo exhibit by Antiqueño painter Edsel Moscoso. Born and raised in Bugasong, Moscoso made a name for himself among art collectors in Manila and abroad. This turned out to be his second to the last exhibit; his last was in Switzerland before he came home very ill. Paying homage to his fellow Antiqueños in his 42nd exhibit was a very significant step for Moscoso. It was the first time in his entire career as painter that he announced in his exhibition that he is an Antiqueño, and that his paintings are images of Antiqueños.

Edsel Moscoso was a big name among collectors and art critics. He shows were much written about in newspapers and magazines, but none mentioned about Antique. His paintings were regarded as Filipino, but never Antiqueño. National Artist Nick Joaquin in his column in Manila standard wrote of Moscoso’s paintings: “(they) tell no story – except that eternal story of born, live, love, work, suffer and die – but they do make a point of retelling that story as the story of how the Filipino is born, lives, loves, works, suffers, and dies.”

The brochure for the “Antiqueños” exhibit says: “Moscoso’s art identifies with the Filipino rural community. He spent part of his life in the simplicity of the rural environment.” I wonder if this was a conscious effort to generalize, or if the writer was not at all aware that the “rural environment” that mapped Moscoso’s imagination as artist were the mountains, valleys and seas of Antique, and the Antiqueño fisherfolks, peasants, and vendors. In short, as artist Edsel Moscoso was first appropriated by the Filipino, before he was possessed by the Antiqueño. In other words, he was first discovered by the nation, before he was owned by the province. Or perhaps, it was Moscoso who first saw the nation, before zeroing in on his hometown.

In “Antiqueños: Homage to my Kasimanwas” Moscoso comes full circle. It a journey of an Antiqueño as an artist. The artist had come home, and he was warmly welcomed by the Antiqueños. The exhibit opening on August 28, 2007 was attended no less by Senator Loren Legarda, who traces her roots to Antique, and Governor Sally Zaldivar Perez and her entourage of Antiqueño supporters and friends.

Moscoso, well-remembered by his family and friends as Totong Edsel, was born on January 30, 1952 in Bugasong as the sixth child of Dr. Julito A. Moscoso and Remedios Atillo Hermoso. He started drawing before he went to school at Bugasong Elementary School, and finished Fine Arts at the University of the Philippines. In 1975, he was chosen as one of the 13 Outstanding Young Artists of the Art Association of the Philippines, and he participated in various group exhibits before he had his first solo show at the Kilusang Gallery, followed up with another at the Galeria Buglas in Bacolod City.

In the 80s, Moscoso ventured into holding exhibitions abroad, like San Francisco, Italy, Beijing, Moscow, Sweden, Germany, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, among others, which gave him renown as an international artist. In 1986 he studied at the Center for the Study of Medieval Art and Culture through a scholarship from the Italian Government. He finished summa cum laude at the Pontifico Instituto di Archeologia Christiana in Rome.

Moscoso’s career as an artist is a long list of solo exhibits all around the globe. He kept coming and going if only to show off his canvasses of the ordinary folks – sakadas, peasants, fisherfolks, farmers, vendors, salt-makers – little people in varied poses of daily living, carrying their burden of baskets, sugar canes, fishnets, sacks of rice. They are pictures of simple yet industrious and hardy folks, of peasant women framed by halos, evoking divinity in their earthiness. Perhaps these are the images that enchant Moscoso’s collectors. He called his paintings “manscapes.”

At the dawn of the new millennium, Moscoso went home to Antique and built his house atop the rocks of Madrangca Beach in San Jose. His dream house facing the sea gave him a view of Madrangca’s picturesque sunset, and perhaps it was this that convinced him to stay in Antique. His house was his sanctuary, and he filled it with his art collection from the different places he had been to. He wanted to make this as a creative space to become home to artists and writers who wanted to get inspiration for their works.
In his 42nd solo exhibit, just after an exhibition in Seoul, Korea, and before a scheduled exhibition in Switzerland, Moscoso proudly announce, after a long journey around the globe, that the people clothed in gold – as Nick Joaquin had it: the golden Moscosos – are Antiqueños. It was the greatest honor Moscoso gave to Antique and her people.