{"status":true,"msg":{"data":{"id":44784,"auction_id":90,"set_id":119,"lot_number":"110","artist":"Fernando Zóbel (1924 - 1984)","title":"La Terraza, III","starting_price":10000000,"signed_dated":"signed (lower right and verso)
titled and dated 1978 (verso)","medium":"oil on canvas","size":"39 1/2” x 39 1/2” (100 cm x 100 cm)","property":null,"coa":null,"provenance":"Christie's, Asian 20th Century Art (Day Sale), Hong Kong, 27 May 2018, Lot 367
Private collection, Manila","exhibited":"Sala de Exposiciones El Monte, Fernando Zobel (First Retrospective Exhibition),
Organized by the Caja de Ahorros y Monte de Piedad de Sevilla, Seville, Spain, October 1983","literature":"De la Torre, Alfonso and Rafael Pérez-Madero.
Fernando Zóbel: Catalogue Raisonné of Paintings (1946 - 1984). Madrid: Fundación Azcona, 2022. Listed as \"nº 78-83\" with full-color illustration and painting description on page 584.","write_up":"This August 27, 2024, we are celebrating the 100th \nanniversary of Fernando Zóbel’s birth. In line with \nthis momentous occasion, this magnificent sale \npresents one of Zóbel’s most lyrical and evocative works \nfrom the peak of his artistic career—the Serie Blanca of the \n1970s—and how it passionately highlights the artist’s most \ntreasured place in his lifetime—Cuenca in Spain.
A harmonious wedding of picturesque landscapes and \na vibrant history has long existed in Cuenca. The city is \nnicknamed the “Eagle’s Nest” due to its location 1000 \nmeters high up on a limestone ridge that steeply slopes \ndown into the gorges of the Jucar and Huecar Rivers. \nCuenca’s man-made structures, situated atop this ridge, \noffer a breathtaking, panoramic view of the city and the \nRiver Jucar, Cuenca’s birthplace and, thus, its heart and soul.
The story of Zóbel’s love affair with Cuenca began in 1963 \nwhen he became enamored with the idea of establishing a \npermanent home for his collection of Spanish abstract art \nthat would eventually form the nucleus of the Museo de Arte \nAbstracto Español. In particular, Zóbel was so fascinated \nwith Cuenca’s “Hanging Houses” (Las casas colgadas) that \nby July of that same year, he would take up residence in the city and start laying the foundations for his museum in \nSeptember. “I have a feeling it is going to turn into one of the \nloveliest small museums in the world, Zóbel enthusiastically \nwrote in an October 4, 1963 letter to his American friend, \nPaul Haldeman. He continues, “As I will be owner, director, \ncurator, acquisitions committee, patron, board of trustees, \nand dictator, I rather think I shall have a lovely time.”
Zóbel’s biographer, Angeles Villalba Salvador, wrote: “Once \nhe has decided to set up the Museum of Abstract Art in \nCuenca, his trips to this city are constant; for years, it will be \non the road and in the city that he will find most of his themes \nfor landscapes… Little by little, the city and its surrounding \narea take possession of the painter, and Cuenca fills his \nnotebooks, his pictures, and also his writing.” Zóbel would \neven publish an entire monograph filled with his drawings \nof the city coupled with his erudite yet comic inclinations.
Zóbel’s dear friend, Juan Manuel Bonet, says that “Remember \nby painting” was Zóbel’s maxim. In this lyrical work from \nthe artist’s highly acclaimed Serie Blanca, La Terraza III finds \nZóbel preserving and immortalizing his beloved Cuenca in \ncanvas, particularly one of his favorite landmarks in the city. \nBefore embarking on his Serie Blanca, Zóbel had produced \na series of works depicting Cuenca: El Jucar and La Vista.
La Terraza III is the last part of a series of three works \ncentering on the “Restaurante Recreo Peral” and its terrace \nfronting the River Jucar. It would be exhibited in Zóbel’s \nf\n irst retrospective exhibition, the only one during his lifetime. \nThe series is subtitled Historia de Una Obsesión, or “A Story \nof My Obsession,” pertaining to Zóbel’s infatuation with \nthe restaurant and its scenic river. One of Cuenca’s most \nfamous restaurants, the Recreo Peral is located a kilometer \naway from Cuenca’s Plaza Mayor and possesses a terraza \n(terrace) offering al fresco dining with a refreshing view of \nthe Jucar.
Bonet details in his essay Fernando Zóbel, Revisited Zóbel’s \nprofound sense of joy and fulfillment whenever he would \nvisit the Recreo. “The Recreo is a modest eatery near the \nriver, surrounded by trees and easily accessible downhill \nfrom the Plaza Mayor (the climb back is another matter),” \nBonet writes. “There, on more than one occasion, I observed \nthe joy that so filled Zóbel and radiated from him. He strove \nto understand himself as a painter of waterscapes and relied \non the mechanisms of memory to figure out what would \nlead him to devote an entire series of paintings to the Júcar \nin its flow through Cuenca.”\n
Although painted in Madrid, La Terraza III shows Zóbel’s \nf\n ixation with Cuenca, bringing with him his beloved city \nwhenever he went. Memory is instantly translated in \nevery brushstroke, and Cuenca comes to life, seemingly \ntransporting Zóbel to the city he held in the highest regard. \nZóbel enshrines his memory of the Jucar as he saw it from \nthe terrace of the Recreo Peral in La Terraza III. One can \nvisualize the solemn blacks as the steep ridges of Cuenca, a \ntowering scenery that can be viewed from the terrace. The pastel oranges represent the River Jucar and its environs. \nZóbel painted this work on November 16, 1978, during \nautumn, when the leaves of the river’s surrounding trees \n(particularly the poplar tree) turn orange, creating unique \ncolorations reflecting on the waters. The shades of brown \nheavily concentrated on the work’s right portion evoke the \ncaptivating reflection of the orange leaves on the Jucar’s \ngreen waters.
Zóbel once noted in a March 3, 1982 interview with El Pais \nthat the Jucar “displays an array of colors the likes of which \nI have not seen elsewhere.”
Cuenca has soaring cliffs and mammoth walls of rocks that \nseemingly guard its mother Jucar, from which medieval \ncastles and hanging houses eventually sprang forth. And so \ndid a perpetually meditative Zóbel. Interestingly, the Jucar \nbecame Zóbel’s quintessential muse during his creative \npeak of the 1970s, in which physicality and spirituality are \nwedded to form a lyrical expression of meditative luminosity \nand passionate remembrance.
The Jucar would become the subject of Zóbel’s last series, \nLas Orillas, which he made after a wrenching depression \nthat caused him to destroy many of his paintings. He would \nalso publish in 1982 a book of photographs, El Jucar en \nCuenca. As the Jucar became Cuenca’s lifeblood, so was the \nriver’s role in Zóbel’s lyrical virtuoso, giving him the dynamic \nstrength and life-preserving spirituality to pursue his own \nlifeblood—painting.
Cuenca and its River Jucar were Zóbel’s \nsaving grace.
In 1984, Zóbel succumbed to a heart attack. He was buried \nin the San Isidro Cemetery in Cuenca’s highest point \noverlooking the Jucar. Forty years later, Zóbel has become \none and the same with his cherished river, reveling in an \neternal ode of honor and indebtedness. (Adrian Maranan)
TOP: Fernando Zóbel in Cuenca, 1978. Photography by Luis Pérez-Mínguez RIGHT (TOP - BOTTOM): \nThe Recreo Peral, one of Zobel's favorite restaurants in Cuenca and from where he would \nbask in the beauty of the Jucar River © Mikel. The Jucar River as seen from the Recreo \nPeral © Google Street View; A view of the Jucar River during the autumn season. The \norange leaves of the poplar trees reflecting on the green waters of the Jucar fascinated \nZobel, fueling his obsession over the river and the city of Cuenca itself. © X (formerly \nTwitter), @saugardavid; A bird's eye view of the Recreo Peral in autumn. On the right is the \nRiver Jucar and its adorning poplar trees and the towering walls of rocks. © Instagram, \nRecreo Peral","lot_group":"PAINTING","lot_details_html":null,"alias":null,"hp":17000000,"bp":0.2016,"isWithdrawn":0,"accounting_hp":17000000,"userBid":5926,"isPaid":0,"userId":22,"lot_status":"SOLD","isDone":1,"bid_history_id":null,"reserve_price":null,"hammer_price":20427200,"fav":0},"image":[{"id":43093,"img_url":"https://leongallery.sgp1.digitaloceanspaces.com/v2/auction/90/119/lot/110.jpg","isFeatured":1},{"id":43322,"img_url":"https://leongallery.sgp1.digitaloceanspaces.com/v2/auction/90/119/lot/110c.jpg","isFeatured":0},{"id":43096,"img_url":"https://leongallery.sgp1.digitaloceanspaces.com/v2/auction/90/119/lot/110b.jpg","isFeatured":0}]},"increment":[11000000,12000000,13000000,14000000,15000000,16000000,17000000,18000000,19000000,20000000],"prev":109,"next":111,"count_bid":0,"bid_history":[],"tokenExpired":1}