SANTOS, MAURO MALANG aka Malang b. Santa Cruz, Manila 20 Jan 1928. Painter. He is the son of Dan

Santos and Juliana Malang. He is married to Mary San Pedro. They have four children, two of whom are

painters-Stevesantos and Soler Santos. At the age of 10 he studied drawing under Teodoro Buenaventura.

When he was 19 he decided to stop schooling and joined the staff of the Manila Chronicle art department under

noted cartoonist Liborio (Gat) Gatbonton. He created for the evening Chronicle the country's first English

daily comic strip Kosme, the Cop, Retired. In 1955 he set up together with Gat, Larry Alcala, Hugo Yonzon,

and Elmer Agustan the only gallery specializing in cartoons called the Bughouse. In 1972 he studied at the Otis

Art Institute under a special grant. Malang was first known as a cartoonist before he became a renowned

painter. Among his works is Barrio Fiesta, an oil on canvas measuring 12.7 x 40.16 cm which was

commissioned in 1958 by the Ayala Corp for the FGU-Insular Life Building.

 

In 1966 together with other prominent painters, Malang launched "Art for the Masses," which allowed art,

through reasonably priced prints, to be made available to a wider audience.

 

In 1957 Malang was included in the list of "Twelve Artists in the Philippines-Who's Who" by Lyd Arguilla,

founder of the Philippine Art Gallery. The following year he received the Award for Editorial Design from the

Art Directors Guild of the Philippines. He has consistently won in the competitions held by the Society of

Philippine Illustrators and Cartoonists, which named him artist of the year in 1964.

 

Malang won awards in the Art Association of the Philippines annual art competition: second prize, Street

Fight, 1951, third prize, Traffic, 1953; honorable mention, The Yellow Sky, 1959; second prize, Quarter

Moon; and an honorable mention for Gate to Intramuros, 1963. He was a Ten Outstanding Young Men of the

Philippines awardee also in 1963. He received the Patnubay ng Sining at Kalinangan from the City of Manila

in 1981.