National Artist

Artworks

• Salvacion Lim-Higgins (Fashion Design) — Born on January 28, 1920, in Legazpi, Albay, she was the daughter of Luis Samson Lim Katiam, a Chinese immigrant working in the ship chandler industry, and Margarita Navera Diaz. She studied fine arts at the University of Santo Tomas (UST) under the guidance of Botong Francisco. Her formal studies were interrupted by World War II, after which she studied at the Traphagen School of Design in New York, and returned to the Philippines in 1952. In 1947, she opened her first fashion shop in Manila with her sister Purificacion and friend Consuelo Barberan. In 1960, she married Irish expatriate Hubert Higgins and had two children, Mark Lewis Higgins and Sandra. In the mid-1980s, she was diagnosed with lung cancer and died on September 15, 1990, in San Francisco, California.
• Agnes Locsin (Dance) — Born on September 28, 1957, in Davao City, she was the daughter of Carmen Dakudao Locsin, who founded the Locsin Dance Workshop. She studied at the Philippine Women’s University, graduating from elementary and high school there, earned a Bachelor of Arts in English from Ateneo de Davao University, and received her Master of Arts in Dance from Ohio State University. She served as the Artistic Director of the Locsin Dance Workshop, taught at the University of the Philippines Dance Program, and was the Artistic Director of Ballet Philippines at the Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP) from 1989 to 1999. In late 2015, she was diagnosed with stage 1 breast cancer.
• Leandro V. Locsin (Architecture) — eandro V. Locsin was a leading Philippine architect during the regime of Ferdinand Marcos, being at the forefront of the development of state-sponsored programs for the construction of modernist structures with the aim of returning to the national culture and building a unique Filipino identity.
• Nick Joaquin (Literature) — Born on May 4, 1917, in Paco, Manila, he was the fifth of the ten children of Don Leocadio Joaquin (a Colonel in the Philippine Revolution and a lawyer) and Salomé Marquez (a public school teacher). He attended Paco Elementary and, having left school in his third year at Mapa High School, devoted himself to reading. After finishing second in the country in the essay contest about La Naval de Manila, he received an honorary Associate in Arts from the University of Santo Tomas and a scholarship to St. Albert’s Convent in Hong Kong. He worked for the Philippines Free Press, was the editor of Philippine Graphic, and the publisher of Mirror Weekly. Nick Joaquin was a Catholic until the very end of his life and died of cardiac arrest on April 29, 2004, in his home in San Juan, Metro Manila. He was buried at the Libingan ng mga Bayani.
• Larry Alcala (Visual Arts) — Lauro “Larry” Alcala, also known as Mang Larry, was a cartoonist, illustrator, and a pioneer in the field of visual communications who became a professor at the University of the Philippines (UP). While studying at UP, he was hired as a staff artist and a board member for the Philippine Collegian, being one of the first iskolar ng bayan to do so. After finishing his studies at UP, he taught at the University’s College of Fine Arts for thirty years. Among other things, he was credited with making the field of visual communication an official discipline in the curriculum by offering graphic design and illustration courses. He was one of the founding members of the Philippine Board on Books for Young People (PBBY) and has mentored the children’s book illustration group Ang Ilustrador ng Kabataan (INK). Alcala was invited to represent the Philippines at the First Asian Cartoonists’ Conference in Hiroshima, where he met the famous creator of Astro Boy, Osamu Tezuka.