Headline-Making Zóbel Masterpiece Featured in Time Magazine Reportage on Cuenca Museum That Put Zóbel on the Global Art Map
\nUndoubtedly one of the most iconic and significant photographs in the history of Fernando Zóbel and his career as a painter and collector was the image taken by Eric Schaal for TIME magazine (July 29, 1966).
\nIt shows, at its center, an assistant of the artist holding the magnificent *“A las siete de la tarde, en Tres Juncos”* (\"At 7 pm in [the town of] Tres Juncos”) that is an important highlight of this auction.
\nShortly after it first appeared — the opening to the public was on June 30 of the same year, 1966), the works of Zóbel and the feature of the Museo de Arte Abstracto Español which he established in an international magazine of the United States —became the catalysts that turned the Cuenca Museum into a global touchstone for any art lover.
\nUndoubtedly, “A las siete de la tarde, en Tres Juncos” is one of the most important and dazzling paintings of the second half of the 1960s. So much so that Zóbel himself chose this painting to represent his work to the international media presentation both as an artist and his extraordinary contributions as a generous collector.
\nAlthough painted in May 1966, the painting refers, through its title, to the month of September, and more specifically to a time—seven in the evening. This should lead us to reflect on Zóbel’s slow and methodical work as a profound researcher of the effects of light at different times of the year, and his impeccable study of nature in his sketchbooks, which he would later revisit to create paintings based on his observations of natural phenomena, resulting in abstractions of light's effects in nature. *
\nThis interest and admiration, inherited not only from the Renaissance (where artists like Leonardo studied the effect of water or clouds) but also from the Impressionist painters, who, thanks to tools like the portable easel, went out into nature to paint it in situ, led Zóbel to the fields with his sketchbooks, to document and study the landscape, the effects of light and water, and other details that would go unnoticed by an average passerby.
\nFrom these small observed details or effects, Zóbel created an extraordinarily complex structure. A vertical axis runs through the canvas from top to bottom, dividing it into two clearly marked halves. In this exceptional painting, the right side is further divided at the top (perhaps due to a reflection or sunlight effect). At the center, a calligraphy (if it can be called that) clearly derived from his black series, is surrounded by different shades of brown (the brown of the Castilian landscape at the end of summer and the beginning of autumn, but also the earthy brown of Degas, to which Zóbel has referred on occasion, which structure the space around these two vertical axes.
\n** (** Rafael Pérez-Madero, Zóbel, la serie blanca, p. 27)
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Zóbel: “At least, that’s the way I’d like them to look [fresh and spontaneous]. But getting there involves planning and effort. When a picture looks fresh, people tend to think it was improvised. I’m pretty sure that exactly the opposite took place.” —Rafael Pérez-Madero, Zóbel, la serie blanca, p. 24
Finally, a tiny white square anchors the scene and creates a clear spatial ambiguity. This recurring feature in Zóbel’s 1960s works (although we know of paintings with this same solution from the 1950s, such as in “Composición en rojo y negro”, 1955, catalog 55-24 [99], p. 125, or in “Saeta 27-Báltica”, 1957, catalog 57-58 [181], p. 144, among many others that present this square or rectangle as the defining element of the piece) is unmistakable in its importance.
\nOne cannot fail to notice Zóbel’s use of a technique inspired by the Impressionists, with their fixation of the scene through such a point; “Saeta 27-Báltica” undeniably recalls this method, and even its use of blue and red, to the famous “Impression, soleil levant” (1872) by Monet, often considered the origin of the Impressionist movement, and by extension, modern art.
\nIndeed, this rigorous white square in the painting holds the piece in place, sustains it, and, through its ambiguous resource, presents a perfectly composed work.
\nThe title, in addition to placing the painting in time (and its hour), locates us in the village of Tres Juncos, around 60 miles from Cuenca, the city which Zóbel transformed, with the opening of his museum, into the capital of contemporary art in Spain. As we mentioned above, Zóbel presents a familiar space at a familiar time, and so, in fact, we can say that the painting is a form of figuration, based on a specific moment and place—rooted in something as real as space and time. The painting is dedicated to Rodrigo. Rodrigo is none other than Rodrigo Lozano, mayor of Cuenca from 1961 to 1966, and the driving force behind the Museum’s opening. He was the one who granted Zóbel’s “Casas Colgadas” (“Hanging Houses”, referring to the traditional houses built on the edge of cliffs, famously suspended over the Huecar River). and thanks to him, we have this unique location. It is important to note that, logically, Zóbel, in deep gratitude to Rodrigo Lozano, gifted him a painting that was especially significant to the artist, acknowledging Lozano’s fundamental role with the dedication: “with affection and admiration.”
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