Vicente Alvarez Dizon

the author

Résumé

“After the Day’s Toil”
 

Born in Angeles City, then a small town in the heart of Pampanga, Josefina Dizon Henson, or Josie for short, always knew she would spend her life as an artist. She grew up in a household filled with music and art as her mother, Ines Sadie Henson-Dizon was a piano student of Sister Baptista Battig before she married Vicente Alvarez Dizon in 1929. She learned her art from the guidance of her elder brother Dan, who learned the rudiments of drawing from their father, the late Professor Vicente Alvarez Dizon of the University of the Philippines.

  Professor Dizon earned his Diploma in Art from the Yale University School of Fine Arts in 1936. In 1939, at the historic International Competition on Contemporary Art of 79 Nations at the Golden Gate Exposition in San Francisco, California his painting titled “After the Day’s Toil” won First Place by popular vote. The entry of Spain by Salvador Dali won second place, and the entry of the United States by Robert Philipp placed third. The French Impressionist Maurice Utrillo also had an entry but did not win.

“After the Day’s Toil” 

After high school, Josie enrolled at the University of Santo Tomas in Manila for a course in Fine Arts. Among her professors were National Artist Victorio Edades in Art History, Galo B. Ocampo in Design and Color, Antonio Garcia Llamas in Portraiture, Virgina Ty-Navarro in Freehand Drawing, Antonio Celis in Still-Life Painting, Diosdado Lorenzo in Landscape Painting and Professor Jose Monti in Sculpture.

After graduating in 1962 with a Bachelor in Fine Arts degree, major in painting, Josie worked initially as Art Editor of “The Grade Teacher”, a national magazine for Filipino teachers. In addition, she taught Landscape Painting and Anatomy of the Human Body at the College of Fine Arts of the University of the East (UERM) in Quezon City. During this period Josie also attended German Language lessons at the Goethe Haus in Manila.

She later moved back to Angeles City in 1967 after she married Dr. Ruben G. Henson, Jr. an EENT specialist. In the years that followed, after the arrival of her children, three boys in a row, Raoul and a girl, Josie lay down her brushes in favor of motherhood but her heart always belonged to the Arts. Her travels to the United States of America and to Europe served as inspirations to further inspire her to paint again.

On a trip to the United States in 1975, Josie was exposed to great museums like the New York Metropolitan Museum, Guggenheim Museum in New York, the Smithsonian Institute in Washington D.C., and Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. At the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, she saw for the first time the huge beautiful portraits done by John Singer Sargent, her favorite portrait artist whose numerous works were being shown at the said Museum and also at Isabella Gardner Museum in Boston.

In 1978, Josie and her husband Ben’s travel to India and Kashmir served as an inspiration and she had her first one-man show; which depicted many sceneries and colorful flowers of India and Kashmir at “The Gallery” of the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Manila in 1979. In 1980, Josie had a two-man show with artist “Bodgie” Marella Ocampo also at The Gallery of the Hyatt Regency. In 1983, Josie took a Watercolor Workshop with Dong Kingman the famous American-born Watercolorist. Given by the Hewitt brothers, this was held in Hong Kong and Mainland China for three weeks where she toured and painted on-the-spot in Hong Kong, Soochow, Guilin, Wuxi, Beijing, Canton, Shanghai and the Great Wall. One of her memorable moments was painting The Great Wall of China on-the-spot together with Dong Kingman and being critiqued by him
afterwards.

Josie took another workshop in 1986, this time in Pastel Portrait Painting with famous Portrait Artist Daniel Greene in North Salem, New York.

A trip to Europe in 1989 gave Josie a chance to view the works of old masters at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam like Rembrandt, Jan Vermeer, Franz Hals, Van Gogh, Picasso, etc. and in other museums in the Netherlands, Switzerland, and Germany. In Switzerland she visited the Picasso Museum.

Infront of Monet’s house in Giverny near Paris

The untimely demise of her second son, Ramsee in 1990, put a damper in Josie’s creative urge. But the sudden eruption of Mt. Pinatubo in 1991 served to awaken her slumbering art. In 1992, she joined a group of Artists from Angeles dubbed as “ARTRUPTION” at the Cultural Center of the Philippines. 

On a trip to Belgium in 1998, Josie and Ben made a side trip to Paris where she visited Musee D’Orsay and the Musee de Louvre where she saw the Mona Lisa and the paintings of Jacques-Louis David who is famous for his huge, dramatic canvasses of Napoleon and other historical figures, and the works of other Impressionists. She and Ben also visited the house and garden of Claude Monet in Giverny. Then again, Josie and Ben flew to Italy in September of 2002 and viewed the magnificent St. Peter's Basilica, at the Vatican in Rome and its imposing, spectacular, and its breath-taking architecture. During the visit to the Sistine Chapel, Josie was awed at how Michelangelo was able to create this great and enduring masterpiece at the chapel’s ceiling. She also admired the beautiful marble statues “The Pieta” by Michelangelo and his “David” in Florence. On a trip to Belgium in 1998, Josie and Ben made a side trip to Paris where she visited Musee D’Orsay and the Musee de Louvre where she saw the Mona Lisa and the paintings of Jacques-Louis David who is famous for his huge, dramatic canvasses of Napoleon and other historical figures, and the works of other Impressionists. She and Ben also visited the house and garden of Claude Monet in Giverny.

Then again, Josie and Ben flew to Italy in September of 2002 and viewed the magnificent St. Peter's Basilica, at the Vatican in Rome and its imposing, spectacular, and its breath-taking architecture. During the visit to the Sistine Chapel, Josie was awed at how Michelangelo was able to create this great and enduring masterpiece at the chapel’s ceiling. She also admired the beautiful marble statues “The Pieta” by Michelangelo and his “David” in Florence.

An old RIvello Doorway (watercolor) 

Since she was a little girl, Josie has been hearing of Rivello from her cousin Elisa whose Italian father inherited a three hundred-year-old house. It has been Josie’s fondest wish to visit Rivello, a medi- city on top of the Apennine Mountains south of Naples. She painted on-the-spot Infront of Monet’s house in Giverny near Paris watercolors of this beautiful city and the neighboring seaside cities like Maratea. A side trip to Salerno for a three-day cruise to the stunning lovely coastal cities of Amalfi, Positano and Capri made the trip complete.

After attending the Rotary International Convention in June 2005, Josie revisited the Art Institute of Chicago to view again her favorite paintings by Claude Monet and other French impressionists and the American Impressionist Mary Cassatt as well as Post-Impressionist Paul Cezanne and Paul Gauguin. She was surprised to learn that the biggest collection of impressionist art is in the United States. 

In June 2006, Josie again went to Europe, this time in Sweden and Denmark to attend the Rotary International Convention. She visited the famous tourist spots like the Tivoli Gardens (an amusement park covering 82,717 square meters right in the center of Copenhagen. Like an oasis, it is also a miniature botanical garden filled with several species of colorful flowering trees and shrubs). It is not only one of oldest amusement parks, it is said that it gave Walt Disney the idea for Disneyland. A visit to Copenhagen is not complete without visiting the most famous of the fairy tale characters of Hans Christian Andersen, “Den Lille Havfrue” or The Little Mermaid. This bronze life-size statue was created by sculptor donated by Carlsberg’s very famous brewer, Carl Jacobsen and was located in an oasis in the heart of Copenhagen Harbor and temporary home to some of the most magnificent cruise liners in Europe. Though very small in size as compared to the massive marble sculptures of Michelangelo and Bernini in Rome, the Little Mermaid is nonetheless the most visited statue in Copenhagen.

At Piazza Navonna in Rome


In Capri with the “Faraglioni” in the background


“Den Lille Havfrue”, the Little Mermaid at the Copenhagen harbor 

Through the years, Josie has done a lot of portraits of her family and friends in oil and pastel. She has joined various group shows in Angeles City and Manila. She loves her garden and has done several scenes of it and continues to paint still-life of flowers, fruits and vegetables in oil and in watercolor. She avoids having exhibits that depict only one subject using only one medium as she thinks it is quite boring, so she mixes still-lifes, landscapes, and portraits to give variety and spice in all of her exhibits. She continues to paint at her studio in Villa Gloria in Angeles City and now grows bonsais, herbs and vegetables in her garden where she recently added two waterfalls to help give her inspiration whenever she paints in her studio.

EDUCATION:
University of Santo Tomas, Manila - 1962
Watercolor Workshop with Dong Kingman (Hong Kong and China) - 1983
Workshop in Pastel Portraiture with Daniel Greene (North Salem, New York) - 1986

DISCIPLINES: Painting
MEDIUMS:
Oil, Soft Pastel
Oil Pastel
Watercolor
Acrylic

INFLUENCES:
Claude Monet
John Singer Sargent

STYLES:
Realism
Impressionism Expressionism

TECHNIQUE: “Alla Prima”

SUBJECTS:
Landscape
Portrait
Still Life