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A Four-Decade Friendship: Fernando Zóbel and Jim & R eed Pfeufer Fernandó Zóbel would come into the orbit of the couple Jim and Reed Pfeufer at the start of his artistic career. Reed Champion Pfeufer, in particular, was a gifted artist in her own right, a member of the Boston expressionist school which influenced Zóbel’s early works with a mix of symbolism, romanticism and ‘Byzantine mosaics.’ The Pfeufer son, Eric, writing in A Four-Decade Friendship with Fernando Zóbel, (León Gallery, 2015) would recall the tale of the remarkable bond they had with the artist. “Seventy years ago, Fernando Zóbel de Avala Y Montojo showed up at our doorstep in Cambridge, Massachusetts, clicking his heels together and bowing respectfully, while making his formal introduction to the Pfeufer (Foy-Fer) family. To a young boy, he seemed magical; always bringing fantastic presents, creating cartoons and telling whimsical stories as well as becoming as close to my parents and siblings as any other member of our actual family. He often affectionately called us his "Poofers" Over the next almost 40 years, until his untimely death in 1984. Fernando kept a strong bond with us. His occasional personal appearances were supplemented with graciously bringing us individually to visit him in Spain. Most profoundly, however, was the unbroken chain of communication through a wealth of lovingly written letters between Fernando and each of us. And in particular with my mother, Reed Champion Pfeufer. After their initial meeting, Reed and my father Jim took Fernando under their wing in assisting him to develop his artistic ambitions. They were both artists, although my father had moved on to specialize primarily in poetry and graphic design. As head of the Graphic Design Department at the Rhode Island School of Design, Jim was able to bring Fernando there for a year in 1954 as a visiting instructor. Many of Fernando's conversations with my mother, both verbally and in letters, centered on his own triumphs in artistic self- discovery, as well as expressing a genuine appreciation for Reed's talent. To my sheer joy and amazement, in the last year, while rummaging through the house left to me by my parents, I discovered flat files and boxes filled with Fernandos forgotten art works and letters… And just as Fernando sponsored me to visit him in Cuenca as a young adult, I feel that he has once again reached out and given me one last posthumous gift - to be here with you for this wondrous celebration of his talent and artistic legacy. I am truly blessed to have known him.” In 1959, Fernando Zóbel held his first solo show in Spain at Madrid's Galería Biosca. Titled 'Zóbel: Pintura y dibujos,' it was the first time the gallery, then under the directorship of Juana Mordó, had exhibited an abstract painter. The exhibition consists of Zóbel's seminal Saetas ('Arrow') and lauded Serie Negra, which established and consolidated his principles in abstraction. This piece, Arc – Orgelia, was a part of that landmark show and belongs to Zóbel's later Saetas. But to understand the context of this work means looking back at Zóbel's artistic journey during the 1950s. Discussing Fernando Zóbel's artistry can be summed up in three phrases: heightened exploration, deep contemplation, and bold evolution. The 1950s witnessed these factors converge to engender the Zóbel we have come to know. The Spanish art historian Francisco Calo Serraler particularly notes in his essay "Zóbel: The Affirming Years" that the late 1950s was when Zóbel "veere[ed] decisively towards the path of abstraction and develop[ed] his unique artistic approach." In one way or another, Zóbel's close friendship with the Pfeufers engendered his artistic maturation and journey towards his iconic Saetas. In 1955, through the help of the Pfeufers, Zóbel became a resident artist at the Rhode Island School of Design. There, he had the opportunity to visit an exhibition of works of a then relatively unknown Mark Rothko at the Providence Museum titled Recent Paintings by Mark Rothko. Zóbel became fully engrossed with Rothko's art, particularly in his employment of colors that brings out all the work's expressiveness. He would later remark: "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…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." Zóbel had also crossed paths with Alfonso Ossorio, with whom he bonded until late at night while drinking Scotch at the latter's East Hampton home. Through Ossorio, Zóbel rubbed elbows with Jackson Pollock and Franz Kline, two of his foremost luminaries, along with Rothko and Willem de Kooning. Zóbel traveled to Japan the following year on an Ayala business trip and visited Kyoto, notably the Temple of Rioanji, its sand garden, and the Daisen Temple. Of this, he writes: "All the huge trees are here but in miniature. An equivocal effect, mildly soothing, mildly crying, and, in the long run, quite irritating." From there, Zóbel would later incorporate elements of Zen aesthetics into his burgeoning new style. These encounters engendered a critical juncture in Zóbel's creative expression—an artistic coming of age. From there, the seminal Saetas blossomed. The series reflects Zóbel's discovery of his distinct creative language—his bona fide expression of asserting himself as a compleat abstractionist. Zóbel's primary concern with the Saetas is movement captured by the inherent power of painterly gesture and medium rather than the reinterpretation of recognizable objects, thus a non-objective body of work. In his conversations with Rafael Perez Madero and published in the latter's La Serie Blanca (1978), Zóbel describes his Saetas as "movement expressed metaphorically through the use of line...movement observed, sensed, never imitated, but, I hope, translated." Zóbel also noted that the Saetas were inspired by the Japanese sand gardens he visited in 1956. "All those meticulously drawn lines with the rake transmit a disturbing effect," he says. By the time of the creation of Arc-Orgelia, Zóbel had broadened his Far Eastern influences. The discovery of numerous Chinese porcelains in his family's estate in Calatagan, Batangas further sparked his interest in Chinese art. In 1958, Zóbel took Chinese painting and calligraphy lessons under a Shanghai painter, Professor Ch'en Bing Sun. Thus, the later Saetas resoundingly echo Zóbel's Oriental sensibilities. In Arc-Orgelia, we may discern Pollock's swift gestural strokes and Rothko's particular application of background colors. But Zóbel's familiarity with Oriental aesthetics veers from the dazzling expressionism of his influences. Instead, it projects an immense sense of calm—deeply contemplative, almost poetic, and mystical. Zóbel's Arc-Orgelia—and his Saetas in general, serves as an avenue to enhance his self-reflection and feed his soul—a painter attuned to his spiritual sensibilities. In the words of Rafael Perez Madero, "they convey a serenity more conducive to contemplation than to opinion." Despite the travails of his various personal crises at the time, i.e., balancing his work at the family business and his passion for painting, Zóbel still emerged triumphant in discovering his true artistry, much like Oriental art's essence of finding one's true nature. Since Zóbel's Saetas are meditative in essence, they are also images of structured spontaneity. Calligraphy, movement, and space sublimely come into play in an orderly, logical manner. Antonio Magaz Sangro writes in the exhibition catalog of Zóbel: Pintura y dibujos: "But the most expressive affinity between Zóbel's painting and Far Eastern calligraphy lies…in its improvisational style, that direct execution, both carefree and unwavering, which gives his paintings a fresh and spontaneous air. Yet, just as a Far Eastern artist will not improvise, experimenting exhaustively with numerous prior drafts, so too Zóbel, who, as Lope de Vega said of himself, is quite capable of completing a work "in hours twenty-four," does not undertake a painting without having produced countless preliminary drafts." (A.M.)