An Exceptionally Rare Blue Saeta One of Only Nine of its Kind by ADRIAN MARANAN "In a theoretical sense, I knew it was possible to paint abstractly, but Rothko's demonstration convinced me completely... I felt obliged to paint, but I had abandoned the need to represent. This left me in a vacuum. Almost at the same time, I discovered photography’s ability to preserve the image in a manner I felt far superior to the resources of painting. I felt obliged to paint, but I had abandoned the need to represent. This left me in a kind of vacuum. A vacuum that turned into two years of experiments and into a huge pile of destroyed paintings, until I found my theme in the technique that led to the series of Saetas." FERNANDO ZÓBEL, IN HIS CONVERSATIONS WITH RAFAEL PEREZ-MADERO, PUBLISHED IN PEREZ-MADERO’S “LA SERIE BLANCA” (1978) - In a fitting culmination to Fernando Zóbel's birth centennial celebrations, an extremely rare blue Saeta goes under the block in León Gallery’s year-end sale. Titled Azul sobre pardo (Saeta 258), the work is one of only nine "blue Saetas" existing, as pointed out by Alfonso de la Torre, renowned Spanish art critic and author of the authoritative catalogue raisonné of Zóbel's works. In fact, one of the eight “blue Saetas,” Saeta 44, now hangs at Singapore's National Gallery. Another one, Ku III (Blanco sobre azul) is in the Cultural Center of the Philippines Collection, while Saeta 42 (Bermellon sobre azul ultramar) is in the Ateneo Art Gallery. Forma VI/Saeta VI (Raya amarilla sobre fondo azul transparente) is in Madrid’s Fundación Juan March Collection. Pájaro de Fuego (1959) is in the Del Monte Corporation Collection. Forma IV – Saeta IV (Naranja sobre azul grisáceo) (1957), Corona II (Naranja sobre azul verdoso) (1957), and Saeta 50 (Rojo sobre negro azulado) (1958) are in private collections. Painted by the artist in Madrid, Azul sobre pardo was one of the works in Zóbel's first solo exhibition in Spain—Zóbel: Pinturas y dibujos held at Madrid's Galería Biosca. Zóbel's biographer, Angeles Villalba Salvador, notes that the exhibition was "the first time that Juana Mordo, the director of the Galería Biosca at the time, has held an exhibition of an abstract artist's work." Mordo would also become Zóbel's gallerist. Zóbel's "Saetas" paintings remain one of the most coveted in his oeuvre as approximately only 85 to a hundred paintings in this series were said to be painted by the artist over a span of only two years, from 1957 to 1959. Zóbel’s Saetas as his first works of pure abstraction. In a 1978 interview with his dear friend Rafael Perez-Madero, Zóbel remarked that he deemed his Saetas his first works on abstraction, "leaving aside a few unsuccessful experiments," he said. In 1953, Zobel first ventured into non-objectivism, gracing the landmark exhibition of non-objective art organized by the Philippine Art Gallery—"The First Exhibition of Non- Objective Art in Tagala," in which his two entries, Snappers and Plaza, were pronounced the "most distinguished" in the exhibition catalog authored by the esteemed poet-critic Aurelio Alvero aka "Magtanggul Asa." However, Zóbel destroyed many of his pre-Saetas non-objective paintings, as he found "such endeavors to be lacking in meaning and also somewhat incoherent," as Villalba Salvador puts it. One surviving work from 1953 was auctioned by León Gallery in September 2023. But by 1954, Zóbel would finally bind his affinity for non- objectivism. While attending the Rhode Island School of Design as a resident artist, which was made possible through the support of his close friends, the couple James and Reed Pfeufer, Zóbel graced an exhibition of a then-unknown Mark Rothko titled Recent Paintings by Mark Rothko. He would visit the exhibition every day, trying to figure out the power those paintings of sheer color expressiveness had on him. Zóbel would write in his diary, "I am surprised at the way those gigantic colored squares resist being forgotten." In early 1955, while visiting the Alhambra in Granada, Zóbel marveled at its architecture, seeing them as evoking Rothko's distilled sophistication. He wrote in his diary, "With every single refinement, I can think of Rothko again." Zóbel, who would abandon figuration owing to Rothko's pervasive influence, had questioned his Baroque sensibilities and the need for figuration when it is possible to reduce painting and still retain its expressiveness through the mere use of color. At the same time, towards the end of 1954, Zóbel had discovered that photography, "with its direct images, satisfies his desire to reproduce the themes to which he is drawn," as Villalba Salvador puts it. The art of photography, which his friend Ronald Blinks had introduced to him, added to Zóbel increasing agitation in his art. Fast forward to 1956, Zóbel went to Japan on an Ayala-related business trip. Taking as many photographs as he could, Zóbel visited the Temples of Ry?an-ji, its sand garden in Kyoto, and the stone gardens of the Daisen Temple. Returning to Manila, Zóbel would renovate his house, imbuing it with a calming sense evoking Japanese Zen aesthetics. Memory, which would become integral to Zóbel's praxis in the decades to come, had shaped his soft spot for abstraction; it liberated his restless artistic vision. The Saetas as a harmonious synthesis of the East and West Combining the Western (Rothko) and the Eastern (Oriental aesthetics), the Saetas of Zóbel were born. Permanently veering away from figuration, Zóbel turned to gestural painting as a means to capture movement through line—"the movement of leaves, of vegetation, of birds, of people; movement observed and felt, never imitated, yet, I hope, clearly expressed," as he said to Perez-Madero in a conversation. In his Saetas, the dynamic spontaneity of Oriental art, particularly calligraphy that evokes a "swift yet confident" character, is combined with the influence of Rothko's color fields, with all the diversity of moods they elicit through the expressive ability of color. óbel himself said in a March 24, 1972 interview with noted writer Armando Manalo, "My paintings in motion are closely related to Oriental painting. The series Saetas was inspired by Japanese sand gardens. All those lines, painstakingly drawn with a rake, give off a disturbing effect."