Alfredo Roces

10.07.09
Interviewer: John Cloutman

An artist-writer, Alfredo Roces obtained his Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University
of Notre Dame in Indiana in 1954. He took an extra year of drawing studies under the well-known German Dadaist, George Grosz at the Arts Students League of New York from 1955 to 1956. He has had more than twenty One Man Shows and participated in numerous other group’s shows, including major shows at the National Museum of the Philippines and the most recent one at the Metropolitan Museum of the Philippines.

Voted Artist of The Year by the prestigious Art Association of the Philippines in 1975 and a Grand Prize winner at the AAPs 25th Annual Show, Roces has gained equal prominence as a writer, named one of Ten Outstanding Young Men in 1961 and Columnist of the Year (Light and Shadow, Manila Times) in 1971. His monograph on National Artist Cesar Legaspi won the Manila Art Critics National Book of the Year Award. He has authored 11 books and designed a good number. He was editor in chief of Filipino Heritage a ten-volume study on Philippine culture and history and after moving to Australia in 1977 served as editor of Geo Australasia's Geographical Magazine for
12 years. He was a daily columnist for the Manila Times from 1961 to 1972.

Now a freelance artist writer, Roces’s painting has returned from the abstract and assemblage work to figurative imagery. He has just completed a family history and biography of his brother, Rafael Liling Roces Jr., who was martyred during World War II. A book on Felix Resurreccion Hidalgo and the Generation of 1872 was released in August, and he is currently working on painter Ang Kiu Kok. Visit the author at http://alfredo-roces.blogspot.com and http://www.emanila.com/dingroces.