Fernando Zóbel de Ayala

FERNANDO ZÓBEL DE AYALA Y MONTOJO, (Manila, Philippines, 1924 - Rome, Italy, 1984).
"Portrait of Adrián Moya", August 14, 1972.
Gouache ink on paper.
Signed, dated and dedicated in the lower right.
Provenance: Private Collection of Cuenca.
Measurements: 50 x 35 cm, 60 x 45 cm (frame).
A soft and vaporous brushstroke defines this image of conceptual character, which Zóbel retains a certain vibration in the stroke, denoting the transmutation of a changing reality, immersed in a completely personal atmosphere, which stands out for its lyricism and poetic aesthetics as artistic synesthesia.
Also known as Fernando M. Zóbel, he was a Spanish Filipino painter, businessman, art collector and founder of the Museum of Abstract Art in Cuenca. Zóbel was born in Ermita, Manila in the Philippines, and was a member of the prominent and well-to-do Zóbel de Ayala family. It was his uncle who would teach the young Fernando his first knowledge of art. Zóbel studied medicine at the University of Santo Tomas in Manila. In 1942, he suffered a spinal deficiency that forced him to stay in bed that year. To pass the time, he turned to painting. He studied at the University of Santo Tomas and later transferred to Harvard University in 1946 to pursue degrees in history and literature. He finally graduated in three years and wrote a thesis on the work of Federico García Lorca. Zóbel began painting during this period without formal training at Harvard. In the fall of 1946 he met Jim Pfeufer and his wife Reed Champion Pfeufer. Reed was a painter who was loosely related to the Boston School, and she became a mentor to the young artist. Zóbel graduated in 1949 magna cum laude. After completing his undergraduate degree, he returned briefly to Harvard to study law, and then worked as a curator at the Houghton Library. He founded the Museum of Spanish Abstract Art at Casa Colgadas, in the city of Cuenca, Spain, in 1963. The museum was expanded in 1978, and in 1980 Zóbel donated his collection to the Juan March Foundation, which later incorporated it into its own collection. Zóbel was a mentor and collector who assisted in the careers of Spanish modernist painters, including Antonio Lorenzo, Eusebio Sempere, Martín Chirino López, Antonio Saura and many others. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Zóbel was working on a series of paintings called Dialogues that were his abstract variations on paintings he admired in museums. He also made a series of paintings inspired by the Júcar River in Cuenca. After suffering a stroke that left him slightly impaired, he created a series called "Las Orillas" (The Shores) which he elaborated on the theme of rivers. In 1983, King Juan Carlos of Spain awarded Zóbel the Gold Medal for Merit in Fine Arts. Zóbel died of a heart attack in Rome, Italy, on June 2, 1984. In 2003, a traveling retrospective exhibition in Zóbel's honor was held in Cuenca and Seville and on May 21, 2006, the President of the Philippines.