Juvenal Sanso Dies at 95: A Tribute to a Remarkable Artist

After a prolific and celebrated career as one of the Philippines’ most iconic painters and a full, well-lived life, premier artist Juvenal Sanso passed away peacefully yesterday, March 28, 2025. He was 95. He is survived by his niece, Carmen Montes. 

Sanso was awarded the Presidential Medal of Merit, the most prestigious award given by the Philippine government, by then-President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo in 2006 for his invaluable contribution to visual arts in the country. The King of Spain awarded Sanso with the Distinguished King’s Cross of Isabela the following year for his exemplary work across national boundaries. The Ministry of Culture and Communications of the Republic of France conferred on him the Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in 2008.

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Born in the wine-producing city of Reus in Catalonia, Spain in 1929, Juvenal Sanso migrated to the Philippines with his family at the age of five. The Sansos ran a wrought-iron business called El Arte Espanol and memories from his childhood included family outings in Montalban and swimming in the Pasig River. The blonde-haired and blue-eyed mestizo also learned to speak fluent Tagalog by hanging out with friends his age including a young Henry Sy.

Sanso grew up home schooled but would later attend the University of the Philippines School of Fine Arts as a special student and would learn from professors such as Dominador Castaneda, Ireneo Miranda, and Fernando Amorsolo. He would also later enroll in the University of Sto. Tomas. In 1951, Sanso’s breakthrough in the local art scene came when he won first prize at the Art Association of the Philippines’ oil and watercolor competitions with his paintings "Sorcerer" and "Incubus." He also finished third in the Shell art competition later that year. 

Sanso moved to Europe for further studies at the Academia di Belle Arti in Rome and L’Ecole Nationale Superieure de Beaux-Arts in Paris. His first one-man show was held in the City of Lights before he returned to Manila for his first local solo exhibit at the Philippine Art Gallery in 1957. Sanso has since traveled around the world for these exhibits with notable shows over the years in Italy, England, Mexico, and the U.S. but despite all the success overseas,  he would frequently come home to the Philippines. 

His "Leuers" won Print of the Year by the Cleveland Museum of Art in 1964, an honor Sanso shares with previous winners Salvador Dali and Henri Matisse. The Ohio museum also hosted his one-man show that same year, which was part of the artist’s U.S. tour that year with stops at the Weyhe Gallery in New York and the Philadelphia Print Club. Two years later, celebrated his 20th year as an artist with a retrospective show at Makati Commercial Center.

The Cultural Cener of the Philippines was the venue for Sanso’s 25th year retrospective in 1974 while in 1976, a one-man retrospective of about 1,000 of his works was held on the occasion of the Manila World Bank and the International Monetary Fund’s summit meetings. Sanso held six simultaneous exhibits in 1989 at the Ayala Museum, the Lopez Museum, the Metropolitan Museum, the Center Cultural de Espaha, the Alliance Francaise and the Finale Art File.

In 2008, Sanso came home and chose to settle permanently here in the Philippines after living in Paris for 50 years. His works hang in some of the finest museums here and abroad such as the National Museum in Manila, Cultural Center of the Philippines, Ateneo Art Gallery, Musee d Art Moderne in Paris, Museo de Arte Contemporaneo in Madrid, New York’s MoMA and Metropolitan Museum, Chicago Art Institute, the Smithsonian Institution and Library of Congress in Washington D.C.

Sanso’s paintings are also found in private collections of past and present movers and shakers such as Fernando Zobel de Ayala, Henry and Hans Sy, the Lopez Foundation, former Presidents Ferdinand E. Marcos and Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, Baroness Edouard de Rothschild, Nelson E. Rockefeller, Prince Michel of Greece, John Newberry, and Joseph Pulitzer, Jr. among others. 

The Philippine art community mourns his passing but Sanso’s legacy continues in the works he leaves behind and the thriving foundation he helped build, the Fundacion Sanso in San Juan.