| Despite the status of the Philippines as Spanish territory from 1521 and a U.S. protectorate from 1898, the art of this former colony is little known in the West. This dissertation makes three key contributions to the study of Filipino art. First, based on archival research in Manila, St. Louis, St. Paul, Philadelphia and Washington, DC., it restores to published record the work of Western trained Filipino artists who exhibited at the 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition, and by reconstructing the St. Louis fair's art exhibition, it rediscovers the forgotten works of artists who, though once world renowned, had subsequently been lost to art history. Second, it examines the active role Filipino artists and patrons played in the formation of a Filipino national identity through the Fair display. Third, it provides the only English language survey of early and colonial Filipino art.;The 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition was a pivotal event in defining Filipino national identity and the Philippines' status in the world arena. Created under the direction of the new American colonial government, the display of primitive ethnic minority groups within the Philippine Reservation positioned Filipinos as primitives in need of American assistance to become civilized. This dissertation examines the active participation of Filipino artists in countering this cliche. Most of these artists have been neglected in contemporary studies of Filipino culture and omitted from post-colonial reconstructions of art's contribution to the Filipino national identity. This dissertation returns the artists and their works to their rightful place in Filipino and western artistic traditions. |
