AND ALL THE ANGELS AND SAINTS: 333. CLAUDE TAYAG AND HIS WATERCOLOR SANTOS

CLAUDE MOISES TAYAG (b.1956), of Angeles City, is not only a talented artist, furniture designer, sculptor, book author, columnist, award-winning chef and cultural activist—but his early interest included collecting antique santos. Not just any santo, mind you, but folk santos—the more naïve, the better. And they had to be of the right size too—no more than 8 inches.

The artist, who is known for his watercolors, immortalized his santos in a folio called “Imahen”, which came out in 1989. Of his 12 watercolor prints in the folio, the santo scholar Esperanza Bunag Gatbonton wrote: “Claude Tayag, by choosing to reanimate the work of the Filipino image carvers, has succeeded in catching our attention, persuading us to take a second look at these santos. Through his eyes, we recapture the carver’s creative impulses. We wonder anew at their perspicacity and talent”.

Three decades after the folio was published, Tayag has recently come up with book that compiles most of his watercolor works” “CLAUDE TAYAG: Watercolors 1974 to Present”. The book, recently launched last 12 July 2019 also had a counterpart exhibition which many of his original watercolor santos in his first folio, as well as new santo paintings were exhibited. Shown here are a selection from the exhibit.