Provenance: Private collection, Makati City

ABOUT THE WORK

One cannot examine modern art in the Philippines without the mention of Zobel, whose art not only helped shape modernism in the country but also impacted a whole generation of artists. As an artist, Zobel’s creations from the mid-sixties through the seventies had featured his distinctive abstract approach. Working mostly in black with his ‘Serie Negra’ (Black Series) from 1959 up until the early sixties, the internationally renowned artist’s predilections were to evolve — veering towards his own means of coloration after dispelling color from his works completely for a near half-decade. Here, he began to reintroduce a different kind of color to his creations —“Anything but expressionist color. It was observed color,” he explained. This was in the early sixties, too. Thereafter, came his series christened as El Jucar, so named after a river in Spain with its indefinable colors. In this instance, he saw the need for color, ever so gently applied, for additional expressive content. Through the next decade, Zobel was to produce some of the most impactful abstract works. His mode of line and color, evolved and matured — minimalist to some degree, but elegant in all its grandeur.