Curatorial Notes

Fernando Amorsolo once regarded Constancio Bernardo as a protégé destined to surpass him in figurative painting. This confidence preceded Bernardo’s departure for Yale University on a Fulbright scholarship, which turned out to be a formative detour that would profoundly alter the trajectory of his work. Bernardo returned four years later with a visual language that stood in stark contrast to Amorsolo’s ideals. His canvases had shed familiar rural scenes, favoring instead clean, deliberate lines and resolute fields of flat color.

This sudden upending of artistic priorities was marked by the influence of Josef Albers, head of Yale’s Department of Design. “No longer any native women! Only squares!”, Albers declared while he dismantled the classical curriculum that Bernardo expected. Bernardo embodied this notion of schwindel, the creative “swindle” in which perception is destabilized: one color appears as two, two collapse into one; colors shift, advance, recede, or become transparent.

–Carla Gamalinda

About the Artist

CMaBernardo was born on December 22, 1913 in Obando, Bulacan. He early on was orphaned of his father Pedro Ma. Bernardo who had married an equally lone child, Cecilia Anastacio. His wife is Nieves H. de Guzman (b. May 10, 1911 d. May 6, 2004) with children Diego Angelo, Rodino Leopoldo and Constancio Leo (Jr.). He finished his 2-year course of Diploma in Painting in an exasperating 7 years due to family financial difficulty. He joined the UP School of Fine Arts in 1947 as faculty even as he was finishing his Bachelor of FA in U.P. 1948. Then he was recommended by Fernando Amorsolo for a U.P. Fellowship and a Fulbright Travel Grant to Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut (1948-1952) earning in one year the Yale 3-year Course Certificate in Painting in 1949; then finished in 2.5 years the 4-year BFA 1951 as primi honoris; and in 1.5 years the 2-year Master of FA 1952 as secundi honoris. From there he went on for nearly half a year of European study tour of museums and art centers. He became Secretary and later Assistant Dean of the UP SFA, later College. He retired at mandatory age in 1978, after nearly 32 years of service in the State University. But he never retired from his art. He died on August 8, 2003, still intent on a project.

Source: https://www.constanciobernardo.com/