The father of abstract expressionism in the Queen City of the South

"Amahan sa Abstract Expressionism sa Sugbo."

Art is the soul of the artist. no matter when it finds expression. So it is with Wenceslao "Tito" Cuevas Jr. who started molding his quiescent talent in midlife, when he took up painting at UP-college Cebu. He had one of the best teachers in traditional representational art-Cebu's grand old man in painting. Martino Abellana.

What transformed his art view was a trip to New York — in his first visit to the US. There, he went straight to the Museum of modern Art and got absorbed for two hours in front of an abstract expressionist mural. Researched on abstract expressionism but found no clear definitions, but he became hooked on the forceful and bloodied dramatic brushstrokes of Franz Kline and Mark Rothko, one of the movements leading painters in the late 1940s.

Tito made the ultimate sacrifice for art when he quit his executive position in Philippine Airlines to become a full-time painter. He had his stint of financial difficulties, but he soon managed to establish a niche in the local art market as an abstract painter when most artists in civil did realist landscapes. portraits and still life's. Today, his painting are sought by collectors not only in Cebu but also in Manila and even abroad.