Provenance: Provenance: Galeria Juana Mordó, Madrid, Spain Private Collection, USA

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 into new and novel forms of abstraction. His artistic ingenuity was not tied to any sort of natural genius, hence his proclivity to evolve and think outside of the box. Zobel was an intellectual who constantly conceptualized and thought about the things that animate and energize his world. Though he is often considered an idealist, Zobel can also be seen as a pragmatist whose ideals were grounded in the reality of art and the process of creativity. Zobel himself pointed out: “I think painters paint the world they live in.” This particular piece was made during a time when Zobel would forego any sort of nostalgia or romanticism in his work in order to emphasize aesthetic form and content. While his earlier works were full of figurative lyricism and colorful figuration, his later works contained pure representations of color, shape, and form. Although most audiences considered his later works as pure examples of abstract minimalism, Zobel’s relatively hindmost pieces actually contain traces of neutral colors and hues. Moreover, though the original Icaro stemmed from his acclaimed Serie Negra series, this piece exemplifies Zobel’s artistic synthesis as he applies both the imaginative spirit of his earlier works with the disciplined control of his later pieces. To view Icaro is to witness an artistic maestro content with the creative process in which he had spent decades perfecting.