The Order of the Carmelites has honored the Father of Modern Philippine Sculpture with the Titus Brandsma Award, a recognition named after a Dutch priest who was killed during World War II.
The Catholic congregation on August 3 conferred the Titus Brandsma Lifetime Achievement Award (posthumous) to Napoleon “Billy” Abueva for his “integrity, hard work and perseverance and respect for human dignity”.
“As the creator of the Titus Brandsma Award Trophy, he shared with the martyr priest, journalist, and educator Titus Brandsma the same belief in the primacy of truth and integrity in life and work,” said Father Rico Ponce, prior provincial of the Philippine Carmelite Province of St. Titus Brandsma.
The priest said Brandsma and Abueva “have likewise experienced the inhumanity of war and had transcended this to undertake acts of faith and compassion”.
Abueva was proclaimed National Artist for Sculpture in 1976 and was the youngest artist to receive the prestigious award.
He is known for his outstanding contributions to the local sculpture scene such as “Transfiguration” (1979) in Eternal Gardens Memorial Park and “Nine Muses” (1994) in UP Diliman.
Born in Manila on January 26, 1930, and grew up in Duero, Bohol, he enrolled at the University of the Philippines College of Fine Arts in 1950, which marked the beginning of his prolific artistic practice.
Abueva was the designer and creator of the Titus bust and trophy that are displayed at the Carmelites’ Titus Brandsma Center in Quezon City. He passed away on February 16, 2018.
“In art as in life, adversity need not be an obstacle to making our dreams come true – something Prof. Abueva proved in his lifetime. He was not only an outstanding teacher and mentor, he remains an enduring inspiration to today’s and the future’s generation of artists,” said Fr. Ponce.
The award is the country’s version of the International Titus Brandsma Award given by the International Christian Organization of the Media, the Dutch Bishops’ Conference, and the Dutch Carmel Province.
Titus Brandsma was a Dutch Carmelite priest, journalist, and educator who was arrested, tortured, and killed by lethal injection in the Dachau concentration camp in southern Germany, on July 26, 1942.
He was an outspoken opponent of the Nazis who sought to preach and write to defend the Dutch Jews and to oppose Nazi control of Catholic schools and Catholic newspapers in the Netherlands.
On Nov. 3, 1985, Pope St. John Paul II beatified Blessed Titus Brandsma, who is also known as the “martyr of press freedom.”
Carmelite Sister Anne Marie Bos of the Titus Brandsma Institute in Nijmegen, The Netherlands, said apart from his fight for truth through the Catholic Press, “Brandsma also showed spiritual support and enthusiasm for the arts”.
“In one of his writings, Titus Brandsma admits that he does not understand too much about art but that he looks at it from a spiritual point of view,” said Sister Bos.
She said art played an important role throughout Brandsma’s writings. “He focused on what a beholder can see in an artwork, and what an artwork has to say, especially on the level of spirituality.” – with reports from Mark Z. Saludes
