ALTHOUGH he has lived most of his life in Europe, Spanish painter Juvenal Sansó always knew in his heart that Manila, where he was raised, was ?home.?

?I feel at home here,? said the multi-awarded artist who turns 80 tomorrow.

It is no wonder why Sansó feels a deep attachment for Manila despite 50 years of residency abroad. At the age of 5, he was uprooted from Catalonia, Spain, when his family migrated to the Philippines and pioneered a wrought-iron business in 1934.

Jose Sansó-Pedret settled with his family in a tiny, respectable Paco community near Pasig River, not far from Malacañang. It was an ideal setting for the adventurous boy who recalled a bucolic Manila filled with trees and gardens.

?It was a very different time. Manila was more of a garden city then. Isaac Peral, now United Nations Avenue, used to be lined with grand, old acacia trees,? he said.

?The houses had windows with no grillwork or bars. People would leave their homes without locking their doors. It was a very idyllic life,? the artist added.

Fond memories
The Pasig, too, held a lot of fond memories for Sansó who was taught by his father to swim at the age of 8 with his sister and children from the neighborhood. With a rope tied to his waist, he learned to float, paddle and swim in the river that used to be clean and safe.

?I was one of a handful of Manileños who learned how to swim in the Pasig. The day when I was able to cross the river, I felt I was king of the world,? he recalled.

It was also near the Pasig where the young, blue-eyed explorer stumbled upon a lovers? trail used by maids and drivers of rich families as a meeting place for their trysts.

?There were bodegas (warehouses) fronting the river near the trail. At first, the lovers were surprised to see me there. But they got used to me and I got used to them,? he said, with a laugh.

Following the trail cleverly camouflaged by leafy aratiles trees and plants, the curious Sansó saw more than what he asked for. His parents never found out the extent of his ?education.?

In art school much later, Sansó was reminded of this discovery when he saw French painter Paul Gauguin?s bold paintings of Polynesian natives.
Discovery
?It was an enchanting discovery for me, seeing Gauguin?s paintings of half-naked women were so much like what I saw,? he said.

But not all his childhood memories of Manila were happy. The family residence was among the many structures that burned down when the Japanese occupied Manila in 1942 during World War II.
Sansó also nearly died from a bombing attack. ?I was saved by two men after the bombings stopped. Manila was one hell hole. I realized later why I ran like crazy each time I saw or sniffed the smell of chicharon (pork rind crackling). It reminded me of burning corpses,? he said, trying to hold back his tears.

Sansó?s war-time scars were indeed deeper than the ones on his arms and back.
His family fled to Montalban (now Rodriguez) town in Rizal province, where they subsisted on root crops like camote.

?All the banks had closed down by then. We planted camote to survive. It saved our lives,? he recalled.

The Sansós struggled to get back on their feet and set up a horse-drawn carriage enterprise called ?dokar? during the Japanese Occupation. The business folded up when the supply of gasoline returned to normal when the war ended.

Bus business

His father ventured into the public-transport business, starting with a bus that plied the Quiapo-Sta. Ana route in Manila.

Sansó, then 13, rode the bus and sold tickets to passengers. On the route, he met people from all walks of life, including American military police and home-grown gangsters like a one-armed thug named ?Putol.?

With the reopening of schools, the budding artist, who was getting private lessons in art, enrolled in a fine arts course at the University of the Philippines campus on Padre Faura.

He was in good company, hobnobbing with painters Araceli Limcaoco Dans and Federico Alcuaz, sculptor Napoleon Abueva, cartoonist Larry Alcala and Pitoy Moreno, who eventually became a fashion designer.

?We studied in a bombed-out building which is now the Supreme Court,? he said.

The family?s wrought-iron showroom-cum-factory, Arte Español, also found a new home at a sprawling lot on Chino Roces Avenue (then called Pasong Tamo) in Makati City, where the Inquirer building now stands.

?We had a big display room,? the artist described the 8,000 sq m lot in the country?s premier financial district that used to be dotted with rice paddies.

Big success
Arte Español was a ?huge success? for 40-50 years, supplying clients from Malacañang and middle-class families with furniture, window grills and doors.

After winning the first prize in oil and watercolor competitions of the Art Association of the Philippines in 1951 (for his paintings ?Sorcerer? and ?Incubus?), Sansó left for further studies in Rome and Paris, and achieved success for his exhibits around the world. In between, he would make frequent visits to Manila.

?My priorities in life are here, but I have to learn from the best sources possible,? he confessed. ?I belong to the Philippine school, whether they like it or not. Some say that I?m a foreigner, but I feel very much at home here,? said the painter who speaks Filipino like a native.

Sansó?s war experiences are also reflected in his early paintings, described in his website as ?angst-filled grotesqueries??a stark contrast to Fernando Amorsolo?s warm depiction of rustic scenes.

?Some artists don?t want to look at reality, but only want the beautiful, which is absolutely admirable. I love Amorsolo. But I was part of that ugly war,? he said.

Reality

?There were many things that happened during the war, and if you don?t tell these things, it looks like a rosy little picture, which it is not,? he added.

The dark images depicted by the artist, however, have been replaced by blooms in brilliant shades of red, orange, green and blue?perhaps indicating that the artist who had struggled so much had come full circle.

?The way I have lived?and wherever it was?has an impact on my art. I?m a very emotional person, so the good things were marvelous, but the bad things were awful. It?s a hard life, but it?s different if you?re fully intoxicated by it,? he said.

Sansó?s birthday exhibit, ?A Show of Shows,? ends tomorrow at the Sapphire Ballroom of Mandarin Oriental Suites, 4/L, Gateway Mall, Araneta Center, Quezon City.