This piece is accompanied by a certificate issued by Don Rafael Perez-Madero confirming the authenticity of this lot.

ABOUT THE WORK

The moods of the sky derive quite as much from natural conditions as they do from the eye of the beholder. At any given moment, the canopy above is rich with infinite interpretations. Artists might be expected to observe the sky more meditatively than most people. This work by Fernando Zobel is a minimalist demonstration of an art of austere delicacy. An abstract “subject” of absolute serenity is conjured by the pictorial surface. Slightly off-center floats a negative, or dark, sun rising, brightening the gray mists above and below the horizon. Like the Chinese painter or Zen artist, Zobel eliminates every superfluous line, such as the line that would define the horizon, even superfluous evidence of color which may act as an obstructing veil between the work and the viewer. This work is an evocation of balance that need not depend on symmetry, best enjoyed in perfect quiet. Purita Kalaw Ledesma told Cid Reyes in 1973: “The delicacy of style, the balance of the restraint and the things unsaid...these things I find in Zobel’s art, and it moves me.” Although he settled permanently in Madrid, his works continued to be exhibited at the Luz Gallery. In Spain, Zóbel was a mentor and collector who aided the careers of Spanish modernist painters including Antonio Lorenzo, Eusebio Sempere, Antonio Saura, Martín Chirino López, and many others.