*24 Artworks | Period Pieces | Paete Pride, Thomasian Heart
In 1975, Manuel Baldemor left the familiar streets of Paete to embark on his first journey across Europe. What began as a simple exploration became a lifelong pursuit—a quest to see, to learn, and to translate the world into his own visual language.
Each work in this collection is more than a landscape or a scene; it is a captured moment of wonder and reckoning. Baldemor’s brush records not only the monuments of medieval Europe but also the artist’s personal epiphany: that the world is vast, layered, and fragile. His paintings chronicle the dialogue between past and present, faith and conquest, loss and rediscovery.
First published during the Quadricentennial Celebration of the University of Santo Tomas, these works stand as period pieces that mark a pivotal era in the artist’s career. Today, they return to the gallery wall, only 24 of them, rare and irreplaceable —to invite us once more to journey with him.
Baldemor remains a proud son of Paete and a proud Thomasian, his work serving as a bridge between his local roots and global horizons. This exhibition is both an intimate memoir and a celebration of Filipino artistry that has found its place in the world
