Legends & Masters
He conquered his peak in the days when many newspaper journalists were living legends even while still pounding the keys of their manual typewriters — Max Soliven, Teodoro Valencia, Teodoro Locsin, Blas Ople, Ninoy
Aquino. Those were the days when the words “blog,” “Twitter,” “Facebook” and “Instagram” weren’t in the dictionary, when you had to have an editor in order to pass muster in the public eye. Those were the days of the late
Manila Times columnist Joe Guevara, who I know of, but do not really know, but whose stature I gleaned from my newspaper- reading parents.
According to published sources, Guevara, who penned the long-running column “Point of Order,” was the master of written “one liners.” I suppose he would regale readers the way late-night show hosts do viewers with their opening spiels, followed by a friendly drum roll by the likes of Kevin Eubanks.
“Joe’s art of the one-liner was all his own. If Shakespeare could read his columns in the original, one and only, pre-martial law Manila Times and then the Manila Bulletin, he would chuckle at how Joe and Joe alone, standing tall amid an army of newspaper columnists, practiced what the Bard preached: Brevity is the soul of wit,” says Jullie Yap-Daza.
Joe, the dad of my husband Ed’s classmate Boy, rubbed elbows and butter knives not just with the powers-that-be of his time ( he actually is said to have facilitated the elopement of Ferdinand Marcos and Imelda
Romualdez, changing the course of Philippine history), but also with the future masters of art — most of whom would inevitably become National Artists, the art legends of two centuries.
That is perhaps why people are looking at buying a piece of remembrances past — and today’s treasures — when León Gallery stages on June 13 what is arguably its most exciting auction sale yet: the Spectacular Mid-Year Auction 2015. It is highlighted by the distinguished Joe and Nene Guevara Collection; the largest work by Anita
Magsasay- Ho ever to be sold at auction to date; and the only known signed work by Isabelo Tampinco.
Joe Guevara supped with the country’s Presidents — from Manuel A. Roxas to Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo — until his passing in December 2002 (at the age of 85) and hobnobbed with society figures, foreign dignitaries, intellectuals and like-minded individuals.
But outside of journalism, Joe and his lovely wife Nene were said to be both gracious hosts. Sundays were “open house” days in their Bel-Air, Makati home, where the literati and the glitterati hobnobbed from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Jullie recalls that there was one condition for admission: that what was said in the Guevara house stayed in the Guevara house, especially during martial law.
In 1987, when Joe published his selected columns in a book, then President Cory Aquino wrote Joe, “Together with countless others to whom your book has brought many a smile and chuckle, I am happy that your wit and humor can still make people laugh in the midst of all the problems we have.”
Blas Ople said that the closest American parallels to Guevara were Art Buchwald and Will Rogers.
*** The Guevaras were also active and discriminating art collectors with their Makati residence housing their extensive collection of Philippine art by Filipino masters, a treasure trove so exceptional it once moved a writer to describe it as “a collector’s envy.”
His privileged place in society at the time he started collecting artworks makes his collection a treasure trove indeed.
“Joe Guevara acquired art pieces at the right time, the quality of which is close to impossible to acquire right now. For instance he has a piece of Guillermo Tolentino’s sculpture from the artist’s first solo exhibit, acquired directly from the artist. He has an Amorsolo from 1916. He has a piece by Federico Aguilar
Alcuaz made especially just for him,” says León Gallery’s Jaime Ponce de Leon.
Taking center stage in the peerless Joe and Nene Guevara Collection are two rare and iconic pieces by the “muralists’ muralist,” National Artist Carlos “Botong” Francisco —
Landscape and Camote Diggers, both from 1969 — and Crucifixion by National Artist Ang Kiukok from 1967. Other noteworthy art pieces in this collection include those by Guillermo Tolentino,
Eduardo Castrillo, Napoleon Abueva, Ramon Orlina, Federico
Aguilar Alcuaz, Vicente Manansala and Victorio Edades.
“He had the privilege of knowing these artists personally,” adds De Leon. And so now both the journalist and the artists are legends, and those in possession of memories of their charm — and the fruits of their genius — are privileged, indeed.