LIFE AND WORKS OF

RENOWNED ARTIST
JUAN LUNA
• Juan Luna de San Pedro y Novicio Ancheta

• October 25, 1857 – December 7, 1899)

• was a Filipino painter, sculptor and a

political activist of the Philippine Revolution
during the late 19th century.

• He became one of the first recognized

Philippine artists.
• Born in the town of Badoc, Ilocos Norte in the
northern Philippines.

• Luna was the third among the seven children

of Joaquín Luna de San Pedro y Posadas and
Laureana Novicio y Ancheta.

• In 1861, the Luna family moved to Manila,

and he went to the Ateneo Municipal de
Manila where he obtained his Bachelor of
Arts degree.
• Luna enrolled at the Escuela Nautica de Manila
(now Philippine Merchant Marine Academy)
and became a sailor.

• He took drawing lessons under the illustrious

painting teacher Lorenzo Guerrero of Ermita,
Manila.

• He also enrolled in the Academy of Fine Arts

(Academia de Dibujo y Pintura) in Manila
where he was influenced and taught how to
draw by the Spanish artist Agustin Saez.
• The Spoliarium is a painting by Filipino
painter Juan Luna.

• Luna, working on canvas, spent eight

months completing the painting which
depicts dying gladiators.

• The painting was submitted by Luna to the

Exposición Nacional de Bellas Artes in 1884
in Madrid, where it garnered the first gold
medal (out of three).
• The Death of Cleopatra (Spanish: La muerte
de Cleopatra), also known simply as
Cleopatra, is an 1881 oil painting on canvas,
currently on display at the Museo del Prado
in Madrid, Spain.
• Depicting the death of Cleopatra, the last
active ruler of Ancient Egypt, the painting
was painted during Luna's stay in Rome,
and later won a silver medal during the 1881
National Exposition of Fine Arts in Madrid,
which was also his first art exposition.
• The Death of Cleopatra not only served as a
representation of a colonized people
standing up against their colonizer, but also
brought to attention the ability of Filipino
artists, and particularly Luna himself, to
surpass their European contemporaries.
• On December 4, 1886, Luna married María de la
Paz Pardo de Tavera, a sister of his friends Félix
and Trinidad Pardo de Tavera.

• The couple traveled to Venice and Rome and settled

in Paris.

• They had one son, whom they named Andrés, and a

daughter, María de la Paz, nicknamed Bibi, who
died when she was three years old.
• On December 4, 1886, Luna married María de la
Paz Pardo de Tavera, a sister of his friends Félix
and Trinidad Pardo de Tavera.

• The couple traveled to Venice and Rome and settled

in Paris.

• They had one son, whom they named Andrés, and a

daughter, María de la Paz, nicknamed Bibi, who
died when she was three years old.
• In 1894 Luna moved back to the Philippines and
traveled to Japan in 1896, returning during the
Philippine Revolution of the Cry of Balintawak.

• On September 16, 1896, he and his brother Antonio

Luna were arrested by Spanish authorities for
being involved with the Katipunan rebel army.
• Despite his imprisonment, Luna was still able to
produce a work of art which he gave to a visiting
priest.

• He was pardoned by the Spanish courts on May 27,

1897, and was released from prison and he traveled
back to Spain in July.

• He returned to Manila in November 1898,

• Despite his imprisonment, Luna was still able to
produce a work of art which he gave to a visiting
priest.

• He traveled to Hong Kong and died there on

December 7, 1899, from cardiac arrest.

• Five years later, Juan would be reinstated as a

world-renowned artist and Peuple et Rois, his last
major work, was acclaimed as the best entry to the
Saint Louis World's Fair in St. Louis, Missouri.[14]
Some of his paintings were destroyed by fire in
World War II.