The collection of drawings by National Artist José T. Joya in Hiyas: The Drawings of José Joya at the University of the Philippines Visayas Museum of Art and Cultural Heritage (UPV MACH) also shows his journey through Iloilo and a chronicle of his contribution to the development of the local art movement.

Drawings are primary art forms and are used as studies for paintings or sculptures, which are considered higher visual art forms. As a progenitor of other art forms, drawings may be aptly called the soul of visual art. But drawings have qualities that make them an artistic class of their own even if no painting or sculpture may ensue from them.

Jose Tanig Joya (1931-1995), National Artist for Painting, played a significant role in the development of abstract art in the Philippines. But while he is primarily known for his oil and mixed media paintings, Joya also created numerous drawings and produced two books on them. He drew clothed and nude figures, landscapes, architecture, and bodies of water among others. Many of these were sketches made during his travels around the Philippines and overseas.

As a child, Joya doodled relentlessly. As he grew older, he progressed to imitating magazine pictures of film artists and observed the work of movie sign painters. When he decided to pursue the arts, he learned classical drawing and began to explore and experiment with the art form, following his mentors’ advice in the UP School of Fine Arts, and drew with even more renewed vigor.

When he was a graduate student at Cranbrook Academy of Art, he got acquainted with the work of American abstractionists, but he never abandoned drawing; in fact, Joya began drawing abstract forms that betrayed his fertile imagination. His first book, Joya Drawings published in 1973, include some of these works.

When Martial Law was declared, Joya was unable to leave the country due to the travel ban. So he travelled a lot within the Philippines, which, in his own words “served to open my eyes to the beauty and potentials of my country.”

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Despite being an abstractionist, he was equally skillful at capturing the human form. Joya’s drawings explicitly reveal that he is a master of the human form, and – more importantly – his portrayal of people reveals artist’s formal preoccupations and sentience.

“The portrayal of people, especially the humble and downtrodden whose uneventful lives find noble meaning in my drawings, have obsessed me. They seem to me, to offer a broad range of stimulating forms, their innocent, honest facial expressions mirroring their true character. Faces of the rich and powerful have also appeared in my work, but rarely do they inspire me to great heights…My rendition of subjects has always been absolute because non-involvement on the part of the sitter is a prerequisite of my work; a condition that puts me in full command of my creative forces.”

Joya played a role in the development of art in Western Visayas and in UP Visayas. Joya was one of the first major artists working in the modernist idiom who visited Iloilo and paved the way for the revival of interest in the visual arts. In May 1975, he visited the then-UP College Iloilo and conducted an art workshop that focused on figure drawing using a live model. The workshop attracted hobbyists, movie billboard painters, and students. He would visit lloilo on several occasions to support exhibitions by local artists or to bring his artwork to add to the UPV collection.

Among the artist groups he helped established were the Art Association of Bacolod in the mid- 1970s in Negros Occidental, and Hubon Madiaas in Iloilo in 1983.

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The UPV collection of Joya’s drawings are either his gifts to the University, or were purchased by the UPV Foundation upon the urging of Chancellor Dionisia Rola, during an exhibition of the artist’s drawings at Galleria Madiaas. The art gallery, the first in lloilo City and operated by Hubon Madiaas, was actually the ancestral house of Don Modesto Ledesma in Jaro district and is now known as Balay Sueño Cafe. The others were gifts to his friends who eventually donated these to UP Visayas.

Joya in Spanish means jewel – in Hilgaynon it is hiyas. The drawings by Joya in the UP Visayas collection are treasured jewels indeed – all of which have been invested with personal or institutional sentiments and sentimentality, and have art historical worth.