Eduardo Masferré : People of the Philippine Cordillera

Eduardo was born in Sagada in the Mountain Province of Northern Luzon as the son of Jaime Masferré, a Spanish soldier whose family had emigrated from Spain in the late 19th century. Jaime married Mercedes Langkew, a local woman from Sagada and became a farmer and eventually an Episcopalian priest. From 1914 to 1922 the family went back to Catalonia so that their children could study there, but then they returned to the Philippines and Eduardo finished his studies there. In his early years he became interested in photography, he was a self-taught photographer and when World War II ended, he opened a photographic studio in Bontok. The first exhibitions of his photographs were held in Manila in 1982 and 1983 and subsequently in Europe, Japan and the United States.

“Eduardo Masferré is an artist who did the right thing at the right time for the right reasons. A photographer with remarkable foresight, Masferré understood that change is inevitable. So with his camera, his eye and his heart, he kept the Cordillera’s proud, ancient soul visible and timeless amidst the changes.
With passion and with dedication, Masferré made a creative record of the life around him, realizing its importance. He is a Filippino who loved Filippinos in their everyday, ordinary setting. This is evident in his photographs, which are intensely felt and imbued with the spiritual element of creativity. The world’s way of gauging civilization and the value placed on Filippino ethnic heritage have only recently caught with the vision Masferré had over fifty years ago”, said Felice Sta. Maria, the President and Trustee of the Metropolitan Museum of Manila, in a message to Masferré’s book People of the Philippine Cordillera: Photographs 1934 – 1956 which was published in 1988.

Voir : https://www.facebook.com/pg/museumfuenfkontinente/photos/?tab=album&album_id=781120092013130

Voir les 90 photos d’Eduardo Masferré sur le site du musée : http://www.museum-fuenf-kontinente.de/museum/emuseumplus.html