Galo ocampo short biography
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was a Indigene painter
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A Brush With Greatness
My first thought was to connect with his family. I wanted to find out more about the artist and his works from his family’s perspective. With the help of friends, I arranged informal interviews with Dennis, Ocampo’s son, who generously shared stories about his father’s life and his time in the United States, particularly in the DC area.
It has been a rewarding experience, finding out more about Ocampo. Although until recently I thought of him primarily as an artist, it is clear that he was so much more.
In New York, he served with Carlos P. Romulo’s foreign-service staff when Romulo was president of the United Nations Assembly in 1949. This was one of several government service posts that Ocampo held during his life. It was likely the most prestigious, at a time when the world was re-building itself soon after the Second World War and the Philippines was gaining recognition in international affairs and assuming its place in the global community.
Upon his return to the Philippines, Ocampo held teaching posts at the College of Fine Arts at the University of Santo Tomas and at the Far Eastern University. He was also appointed director of the National Museum in 1961 and curator of the Presidential Museum.
Many years later, back in th
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In the 1980s, Galo Ocampo was like any other St. Ann Parish member. He and his wife Loretta were devout Catholics and walked a few blocks to St. Ann’s to hear the daily mass. Afterwards, together with friends, they walked the short distance — before I-66 was built — to either the Safeway or McDonald’s on Wilson Boulevard. When he came home, he tended to his garden. He grew eggplants, tomatoes and bittermelon in his backyard.
Few of their neighbors would have known that Ocampo is considered one of the greatest artists in Philippine art history. Ocampo is best known for the “Brown Madonna,” depicting the blessed Virgin Mary as a Filipino. He was one of the leaders of the modern art movement in the Philippines. Aside from being a painter, he created and designed enduring national images: the stained glass windows of the historic Manila Cathedral and the Santo Domingo Church and the Philippine coat of arms and presidential seal.
More than an artist, he was also a soldier and a spy. He did covert work for the U.S. Army Forces in the Far East (USAFFE) during World War II. An account of his spy work is documented in his biography, “The Life and Times of Galo Ocampo,” written by Alice Guillermo, the renowned writer and art critic. In 1943, Ocampo was inducted as a