Napoleon Abueva, nicknamed Billy, was born on January 26, 1930 in Tagbilaran, Bohol to Teodoro

Abueva, a Bohol congressman and Purificacion (Nena) Veloso, president of the Women’s Auxiliary
Service.
Abueva has six other brothers and sisters: Teodoro (Teddy -deceased[2] ), Jr.; Purificacion (Neny -
deceased), married to Atty. Ramon Binamira (dec.) of Tagbilaran City; Jose Abueva (Pepe), former
president of the University of the Philippines; Amelia Martinez (Inday), now living in Chicago;
Teresita (Ching) Floro, now living in Sydney, Australia; and Antonio (Tony), a landscape artist.[1]
He assumed the name Napoleon at the age of six, when as a student at the St. Joseph Academy
in Tagbilaran, one of the nuns first called him Napoleon after Napoleon Bonaparte. The name stuck,
and ever since, Abueva references the quote from Napoleon: "If I weren’t a conqueror, I would wish
to be a sculptor."[3][4]
At U.P, one of his mentors was Guillermo Tolentino, also a national artist, who created
the oblation at the university entrance . Tolentino later relegated to him the task of replicating the
sculpture for the Campus of U.P. Los Banos.
In 1976, he was proclaimed as National Artist of the Philippines for Visual Arts by then
President Ferdinand Marcos. He was the youngest recipient of the title at age 46.
Some of his major works include Kaganapan (1953), Kiss of Judas (1955), Thirty Pieces of Silver,
The Transfiguration, Eternal Gardens Memorial Park (1979), UP Gateway (1967), Nine Muses
(1994), UP Faculty Center, Sunburst (1994)-Peninsula Manila Hotel. His Sandugo or Blood
Compact shrine in Bohol, Tagbilaran City is a landmark at the site of the first international treaty of
friendship between Spaniards and Filipinos.
1991 "Siyam na Diwata ng Sining" sculpture by Abueva (9 Fairies of Theatre), University of the Philippines
College of Arts and Letters.

"Magdangal" sculpture by Napoleon V. Abueva (Jorge B. Vargas Museum and Filipiniana Research Center).

His son, Mulawin Abueva performed the death mask procedure of opposition leader Ninoy Aquino in
1983 while the elder Abueva made the death mask of Fernando Poe, Jr. in 2004. Both masks are
now displayed at the Center for Kapampangan Studies, Hacienda Luisita, Tarlac. Incidentally, he
also made a death mask of Cardinal Sin.[5]
He is married to Cherry Abueva, a psychiatrist, and has three children, Amihan,Mulawin, and Duero.
Before his stroke, he used to teach at the Industrial Design department of the De La Salle-College of
Saint Benilde School of Design and Arts.[6]