Awards and achievements

Awards and achievements

• 1908 – 2nd Prize, Bazar Escolta (Asocacion Internacional de Artistas), for Levendo Periodico
• 1922 – 1st Prize, Commercial and Industrial Fair in the Manila Carnival
• 1929 – 1st Prize, New York’s World Fair, for Afternoon Meal of Rice Workers (also known as Noonday Meal of the Rice Workers)
• 1940 – Outstanding University of the Philippines Alumnus Award
• 1959 – Gold Medal, UNESCO National Commission
• 1961 – Rizal Pro Patria Award
• 1961 – Honorary Doctorate in the Humanities, from the Far Eastern University
• 1963 – Diploma of Merit from the University of the Philippines
• 1963 – Patnubay ng Sining at Kalinangan Award, from the City of Manila
• 1963 – Republic Cultural Heritage Award
• 1972 – Gawad CCP para sa Sining, from the Cultural Center of the Philippines^[8]

In 1972, Fernando Amorsolo became the first Filipino to be distinguished as the Philippine’s National Artist in Painting. He was named as the “Grand Old Man of Philippine Art” during the inauguration of the Manila Hilton‘s art center, where his paintings were exhibited on January 23, 1969.

Major exhibitions

Outside the Philippines, his exhibitions were held in Belgium, at the Exposicion de Panama in 1914, at a one-man show at the Grand Central Art Galleries in New York City in 1925, and at the National Museum in Herran on November 6, 1948. During the 1931 Paris Exposition, Amorsolo exhibited one of his anecdotal paintings, The Conversion of the Filipinos. Amorsolo’s entries at the Exposicion in Panama were a portrait of U.S. President Woodrow Wilson and the piece La Muerte de Socrates. At the 1948 National Museum in Herran, Amorsolo exhibition was sponsored by the Art Association of the Philippines. In 1950, Amorsolo exhibited two more historical paintings, Faith Among the Ruins and Baptism of Rajah Humabon at the Missionary Art Exhibit in Rome. In 1979, Fernando Amorsolo’s legacy as a painter was celebrated through an exhibition of his works at the Art Center of the Manila Hilton.^[4] His art was also featured in a 2007 exhibition in Havana.^[14]