Anita Magsaysay-Ho was a pioneering artist and one of the first modernists in the Philippines. She studied at the Faculty of Fine Arts of the University of the Philippines under Fernando Amorsolo and Fabian de la Rosa, two classical painters who influenced her first works. She later developed a style more closely related to modernist ideas, which she achieved by accentuating stylisation, design, and rhythm, rather than a realistic depiction of the visible world. She is known for her genre scenes featuring angular figures, predominantly of women painted in tempera or oils.

She developed a taste for modernism during her studies at the Cranbrook Art Academy of the University of Michigan. With the support of Lyd Arguilla’s Philippine Art Gallery in the 1950s, she greatly contributed to the acknowledgement of modern art, which was initially met with a great deal resistance. She was the only woman in the pioneering group “13 Moderns” founded by Victorio Edades. She was awarded many prizes at art contests, especially those organised by the Art Association of the Philippines, the oldest artist’s organisation founded by Purita Kalaw-Ledesma, herself a pioneer of Philippine modernism.