Famous Filipino Painters: Pablo Cueto Amorsolo (June 26, 1898 – 1945) is one of the known artist painters in the Philippines. He is the younger brother of the Philippine's national artist in painting, Fernando Amorsolo.
Pablo Amorsolo was born in Daet, Camarines Norte to husband and wife Pedro Amorsolo and Bonifacia Cueto. When he was still eight years old, his family moved to Manila.
During World War II, he became a follower of the Greater East Asia Co Prosperity Sphere, and served as a colonel of the Kempetai of the Japanese Empire. When the American soldiers succeed in returning to the shores of the Philippines, Amorsolo was captured by Filipino troops.
He was sentenced and executed by firing squad in the hands of guerillas. He died in this manner at the Antipolo, Rizal.
Pablo Amorsolo was an enthusiast of both classical and modern-day forms of art. During the 1930s, he drew and painted may editorial illustrations for Philippine magazines such as the Graphic, Tribune, La Vanguardia, Herald, and Manila Times. He became one of the causes for the rise of the so-called genre art in the Philippines, because he weaved, through his artistic brush strokes, a wide variety of images that show native and social scenes and scenarios. He was also a known master of portrait paintings who had the ability to give life to any individual subject. He painted people from different levels of society and also from varied age brackets, where he was able to present his ability to understand the characteristics and personalities of his human subjects. He also created works that portray themes related to Philippine history. Examples of these are the large images of Magellan and the Natives and The Discovery of the Philippines. The latter was painted in 1944.
Unfortunately, most of Pablo Amorsolo's paintings were destroyed by a fire which occurred in 1945.