FRONT-ROW SEAT TO FILIPINO ART: THE ALFREDO ROCES COLLECTION

It's not often that one man has had a front-row seat to great art—and lived to tell the tale for all of us. Thanks to an extraordinary collection of books, drawings and sketches, paintings, photographs and pottery, Alfredo "Ding" Roces has done just that.

- LISA GUERRERO NAKPIL

Culture chronicler Isidra Reyes points out that he had a career that paralleled the twists and turns of Philippine modern art. She would describe him accurately as "the multi-hyphenate artist, writer, editor, historian, educator, book illustrator, photographer and advertising man; and a living legend of Philippine art."

It was not surprising for Roces, whose earliest recollection was of a grand Felix Resurreccion Hidalgo that hung at the top of the stairs of his home. Titled "Artista y Modelo," it disappeared into the ages when the mansion burned to the ground in the Battle of Manila in 1945.

That painting may have been the metaphor for Roces' own pursuits, looking for what was best in Philippine culture but also seeking what had been lost. He would write the landmark book, Felix Resurreccion Hidalgo and the Generation of 1872, as a sort of paean to that long-vanished masterpiece. It would be among the 15 works that illuminate his legacy.

The Roces family was the first to go full-on mass media in the Philippines with a chain of popular newspapers, called T-V-T, which stood for "Taliba, La Vanguardia and The Tribune," a three-language empire. The family also owned the Ideal Theater, billed as "the home of MGM films." (Ding would cut his teeth in the distribution offices in New York as a student.)