Rosario Bitanga Catalog 3

BITANGA ROSARIO

TRANSLUCENCE THE AGE OF

Born in 1934, Rosario “Charito” de Lara Bitanga-Peralta's creative work was predominantly inspired by the 1950s Abstract Expressionism and Minimalism, a form of painting that explored notions of spirituality and the sublime. She is a pioneering modernist painter and arts educator, who originally hailed from Laoag, Province of Ilocos.

Bitanga first finished law at the University of Santo Tomas (UST), when she decided to pursue a career in fine arts in the same university, and continue her master’s degree at the Cranbrook Academy of Art, Michigan, USA. Very active in the Visual Arts community, Bitanga has been an officer of the Art Association of the Philippines (AAP), the Pontiac Society of Artists and Bloomfield Art Association in Michigan, the Christian Art Society of the Philippines, the Partuat Iloko Group of the Philippines of the National Museum, and the National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA) Committee of Visual Arts.

Being a stalwart in the Philippine Art scene, Bitanga would nurture the next generation of artists by teaching and eventually becoming the dean of the Fine Arts Department of the Philippine Women’s University (PWU). Although presently retired, Bitanga continues to paint, and even promote Filipina artists to this day. R. Bitanga is iconic as the Philippines' first and foremost woman abstract artist.