Vicente Silva Manansala (1910–1981) was a Filipino painter and illustrator, honored as a National Artist for Painting in 1981. He graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of the Philippines in 1930, and later received a UNESCO grant to study at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris in 1950.
Manansala is credited with developing transparent cubism, a style where delicate tones, shapes, and patterns of figures and environments are masterfully superimposed. This innovation localized European cubism, infusing it with Filipino themes and sensibilities. His works often depicted jeepneys, barung‑barong (shanties), cockfighters, and mother‑and‑child figures, rendered with luminous abstraction.
He was a major influence on other neo‑realists such as Malang, Antonio, Belleza, and Baldemor, and his transparent compositions can be traced in Jose Joya’s morphic abstractions and Ramon Olazo’s diaphanous series.
Among his most notable contributions are the murals “Stations of the Cross” in the Chapel of the Holy Sacrifice at UP Diliman, a landmark of modern Philippine religious art. His paintings are held in major collections, including the Honolulu Academy of Arts, the Lopez Memorial Museum, and the Singapore Art Museum.
