Teaching to see and learning to see. "Zóbel. The Future of the Past"

Structured into five sections, with forty-two paintings, fifty-one sketchbooks and eighty-five drawings and graphic works loaned from collections in Spain, the Philippines and the USA make up this survey through which the Museo Nacional del Prado, with the collaboration of the Comunidad de Madrid, pays tribute to Fernando Zóbel, a key figure in Spanish painting of the second half of the 20th century. Born into a Spanish family in Manila, Zóbel focused intensively on the paintings in the Prado and was the founder of the Museo de Arte Abstracto in Cuenca. He was an artist who saw his painting as an instrument with which he could navigate the complex routes traced by the history of art in order to both admire and understand them.

"Zóbel. The future of the past" explores the painter’s work through two themes that are essential for appreciating his unique contribution to contemporary abstract painting. The first revolves around the space between modern art and the legacy of artistic tradition, bringing together the studies that the artist made in museums around the world, in particular the Prado, with the aim of reconstructing his creative process.


Fernando Zóbel, Study for The Dream of the Damsel, 1967 Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, Purchase through the generosity of Paul J. Haldeman.

In addition, the exhibition charts Zóbel’s work through a second theme of geographical and international nature, showing how drawing was the tool that allowed him in, an original and different way, to access the modernity that he encountered in Asia in the vernacular tradition of the Philippines and in Japanese and Chinese painting. Both themes arise from Zóbel’s own identity: born in Manila, he trained in the United States and then moved to Spain. Possessed of enormous intellectual curiosity and erudition, Fernando Zóbel was also a tireless traveller and an exceptionally cosmopolitan artist.

Finally, Zóbel’s work can be seen as a fascinating exercise in artistic education. His drawings teach us to look in a slow, tranquil and analytical manner. His paintings and drawings encompass within them his effort to understand the artistic intention that motivated painters such as Zurbarán, Sánchez Cotán, Van der Hamen and Velázquez.