Jerry Elizalde Navarro (1926–1999) was a Filipino painter, sculptor, and graphic designer, honored as a National Artist for Visual Arts in 1999. Born in Antique, Philippines, Navarro became one of the most versatile and experimental figures in Philippine modern art.
He graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the University of Santo Tomas in 1951, and pursued further studies at the Art Students League in New York in 1953. He held his first solo exhibition at the Philippine Art Gallery (PAG) in 1954, followed by a show at the Mitsukoshi Art Gallery in Tokyo.
An avid experimenter and versatile craftsman, Navarro worked across a wide variety of styles and media:
Primitive inspirations such as masks carved on hardwood
Reliefs of found objects
Figurative and abstract oils and acrylics
Linear sculptures using rods and pipes
Mixed media assemblages with plexiglass sheets
He held several exhibitions at the Luz Gallery, and represented the Philippines in the Sculpture category at the São Paulo Biennale in Brazil (1967, 1971, 1980), as well as the Biennale de Arts Graphiques in Brno, Czechoslovakia (1972). His work was also represented at the Yayasan Dharma Seni Museum Neka in Bali, Indonesia (1980).
