Provenance: Galeria Juana Mordó, Madrid
Galeria Multitud, Madrid
Private Collection, Spain
Acquired from the above by the present owner

Exhibited: Galeria Mayoral, Zóbel. An Artist from Three Continents, Paris, May 19 - July 16, 2022

Literature: Alfonso de la Torre, Rafael Pérez-Madero, Fernando Zóbel. Catalogue Raisonné of Paintings 1946-1984, Azcona Foundation, Madrid, 2022, nº 74-66, p. 516

ABOUT THE WORK

Marina epitomizes Zóbel on the cusp of his sublime transition from his La Vista series of 1972-74 to the zenith of his artistic career—the highly acclaimed and lyrically spiritual Serie Blanca, which the artist would start working on in 1975. In the exhibition catalog Fernando Zóbel: The 1970s, leading Spanish art critic and curator Juan Manuel Bonet describes the progression from La Vista to Serie Blanca: "[In La Vista,] color is reduced to a scale of greys, and the compositive structure almost disappears. These paintings become the starting point for the Serie Blanca, where Zóbel dispenses with the use of color entirely, relying instead on a delicate contrast of values, the effect of light and space." Zóbel’s biographer, Angeles Villalba Salvador, writes that in La Vista, “color is reduced to greys while the geometric network practically disappears altogether.” By 1975, she notes, “after twelve years spent studying color, in the final pictures of La Vista, Zóbel’s painting becomes predominantly white. He thus commences the series, Serie Blanca, which he will continue until 1978. These paintings are characterized by infinitely degraded whites which distribute spaces and volumes and seem to lose themselves on the edges of the canvas.” The predominantly white space, the subtle dance between light and space, the lines and strokes virtually disappearing into and integrating themselves with the space, the unbridled and enigmatic injection of recollections and imagery into painting, and the palpable sense of harmony and intrinsic calm—qualities found in Marina—heralds the arrival of the Serie Blanca. Marina belongs to what Zóbel once described as "abstract landscapes." The inscription at the back of the painting, in Zóbel's handwriting, indicates that the artist finished painting the work on December 23, 1974, in Seville, Spain. At that time, Zóbel was in the midst of the exhibition of his La Vista Series at the Galeria Juana de Aizpuru, also in Seville. Owing to its strategic location at the crossroads of the Guadalquivir River and the Seville-Bonanza Canal, Seville is host to several marinas (dockyards where yacht owners, boating enthusiasts, and sailors park dock their vessels) and the Port of Seville, the only commercial river port in Spain. Zóbel, while reveling in his well-received exhibition at the Galeria Juana de Aizpuru, likely saw the marinas dotting the waterways of Seville, resulting in the work at hand. We can imagine in the linear arrangements the boats and yachts systematically docked in the marinas and the washes emblematic of the calm waters. The work can still be seen as treading across the lines of La Vista since the imagery that inspired it did not particularly interest the artist (Zóbel once revealed to Perez-Madero in 1978 that La Vista consists of "all sorts of things that don't really interest me very much: houses, roads, colors, birds, etc."). Interestingly, Seville was one of Zóbel's much beloved Spanish cities, second only to Cuenca. His biographer, Angeles Villalba Salvador, notes that after Zóbel's exhibition at Seville's Galeria La Pasarela in 1967, the city started "to form part of his life." "In Seville," Villalba continues, "he becomes a very close friend of painter Carmen Laffón, with whom and José Soto, he shares a studio. Also, around this time, he strikes up a friendship with the Bonet Correa family and painters Joaquín Sáenz and Gerardo Delgado. Zóbel would also set up his new studio in the city in 1971, "in the famous Plaza de Pilatos, one of the city's most beautiful and emblematic spots." (A.M.)