Fernando Zóbel, the painter who deconstructed ancient art in pure abstraction

Much has been said about whether or not the Prado should exhibit contemporary art in its rooms. Picasso, Richard Hamilton, Bacon, Cy Twombly, Thomas Struth, Cai Guo-Qiang, Eduardo Arroyo have already passed through them… Some with more success than others, really. Since he came to his position, the museum’s director, Miguel Falomir, has always defended that “the Prado is not a contemporary art museum. There are already some, and very good ones, in Spain.” But he does defend his contemporaneity: it would be “a dead museum” if it did not influence today’s creators. “The Prado’s relationship with contemporary art is very timid,” he points out. Much more than in museums such as the Kunsthistorisches in Vienna, the National Gallery in London or the Louvre in Paris ». The Prado does not want to ignore, however, the artists for whom it was decisive in their way of thinking and in their art. This is the case of Fernando Zóbel (Manila, 1924-Rome, 1984). In 2003 an anthology was held at the Reina Sofía. Two decades later, his work hangs in the Prado. For him, there was no break, but rather continuity, between tradition and the avant-garde. A very original proposal to understand modernity: reinventing the past. He believed that the teachers of the future were always learning from the teachers of the past. Andrés Úbeda, deputy director of the Prado, walks past some of Zóbel’s abstract works at the Prado Efe Why Zóbel at the Prado? No Spanish artist of the 20th century had such a profound conversation with Western painting. He loved and collected the art of the past, it was the driving force behind his painting. He spent hours and hours in this museum, copying the works of Velázquez, El Greco, Zurbarán, Rubens, Goya, Ribera… An inexhaustible source of inspiration. “I’m running out of paintings that have a seat in front of me,” he lamented on one occasion. His Prado copyist card gave him the right to a chair. Decades later, he would donate an important part of his collection of old drawings, from the 16th to the 18th centuries, to the art gallery. And now he pays tribute to him with an exhibition. Desktop Code Image for mobile, amp and app Mobile Code AMP Code APP Code Organized by the Prado, in collaboration with the Community of Madrid and the support of the Ayala Foundation of Manila and the Fundación Juan March, ‘Zóbel. The future of the past’ brings together, until March 5, 42 paintings, 51 notebooks and 85 drawings and works on paper from European, North American and Philippine collections. An exhibition “brave and risky in the Prado’s programming, which leaves its comfort zone,” warns Manuel Fontán del Junco, director of museums and exhibitions at the Juan March Foundation and curator of the exhibition together with Felipe Pereda (Fernando Zóbel de Ayala Professor of Spanish Art at Harvard University, the only chair for a Spanish artist in the United States). In his opinion, this sample settles an outstanding debt with Zóbel. ‘The Maiden’s Dream’, by Fernando Zóbel Harvard Museum He especially liked Velázquez because of his subtlety. In 1982 he was invited to the TVE program ‘Mirar un cuadro’ to talk about ‘Las Hilanderas’. He said that more than talking you had to look. And then he showed the camera a notebook with his version of the painting. In it he noted: “The physical state of the work is painful, a kind of crocodile skin.” Another room in the show is dedicated to Zóbel’s gaze on Goya and ‘The charge of the mamelucos’ (‘El 2 de mayo’). Fernando Zóbel believed that «in order to know how to paint, you must first know how to look. And by looking you learn ». This exhibition reconstructs the poetic and artistic itinerary of a painter guided by a double principle: teaching to see and learning to see. The backbone of the exhibition are his precious workbooks, which he always carried in his pocket to draw and make notes. A kind of portable studio. On display at the exhibition are 51 of the 148 that were delivered by his heirs to the Juan March Foundation in 1984. His meticulous calligraphy stands out, along with exquisite drawings. He already made a show of it in his notes at Harvard University, where he attended at the age of 22. One of his notebooks is shown. Study for ‘The Spinners’. Notebook, 1982 Fundación Juan March In the exhibition we can appreciate Zóbel’s creative process, dive into his mind: three paintings by old masters hang together with the studies and drawings that Zóbel made until reaching his abstract paintings. Exceptional loan from the National Gallery of Washington, the ‘Allegory of Chastity’, by Lorenzo Lotto, is exhibited together with two versions of this painting by Zóbel: ‘The Maiden’s Dream I and II’. He does the same with a still life by Juan van der Hamen, ‘Basket and box with sweets’, from the Prado; and with ‘La Santa Faz’, by Zurbarán, from the Bilbao Fine Arts Museum, which Zóbel recreates as a modern Byzantine icon that resembles a Pollock. The exhibition also deals with oriental calligraphy, which so obsessed Zóbel. He explores it as an abstract art form, takes self-portraits with a Chinese stamp, teaches Asian art history at the Ateneo de Manila… His ‘Black Series’ owes a debt to American abstract expressionists like Kline, Rothko and Pollock . In addition, Zóbel deals with other media: photography, photomontage, his work on soccer… Curiously, he didn’t like this sport. Born in Manila to Spanish parents, educated at Harvard University and the Rhode Island School of Design, Fernando Zóbel was a cosmopolitan man, but deeply Spanish; educated, great reader, open to all knowledge. Painter, teacher, translator, collector, cultural agitator, cartoonist…, he was one of the first translators of Lorca into English, and founded two museums: the Ateneo Art Gallery in Manila (1961) and the Museo de Arte Abstracto Español in the Hanging Houses of Cuenca (1966). According to the curators, he “an impeccable artist, exquisite in everything he did, very generous and with a great sense of humor.” At the end of the 50s he settled in Spain. In Seville he shared a studio with Carmen Laffón. MORE INFORMATION news Yes Mariano Fortuny and Madrazo, the magician of Venice news Yes A ‘Pietad’ by Goya, painted in his youth, is up for auction in Madrid news If El Prado rearranges its deposit policy, but will not open sub-venues or ‘mini-Prados ‘ The exhibition, conceived as an installation, is completed, in room D of the Jerónimos building, with ‘Zóbel: the cosmopolitan eye’, a final coda where his biography is recounted: his travels, his library…, as well as a documentary, ‘Memory of the instant’, directed by Sonia Prior. She tells Zóbel’s niece that she would have fallen from her chair if they told her that her work would end up being exhibited in the Prado.