Collector and Painter: Philippine-born American Alfonso Yangco Ossorio

COCONUT | MANILA
By Jasmine Agnes T. Cruz
"Angry Christ" by Alfonso Ossorio
PHILIPPINES---We all know Jackson Pollock as the American abstract expressionist painter who liked to energetically throw paint on the canvas instead of applying the paint using a brush. But did you know that Alfonso Yangco Ossorio, a Philippine-born American painter, was as one of his most generous patrons? Ossorio, born in Manila in 1916, was an abstract expressionist painter whose family owned Victorias Milling Company. As an artist, Mr. Ossorio was a member of the New York School generation and close to several of its members, including Jackson Pollock, Lee Krasner and Clyfford Still," wrote Grace Glueck in a New York Times obituary.[link]

The artist Alfonso Ossorio. Photo: Hans Namuth/Hans Namuth Estate courtesy of Center for Creative Photography