Having studied literature at Harvard and being fascinated by visual art, his twin passions converged in his illustrations of Federico García Lorca’s Don Perlimplin and later introduction to Goya’s art.

In 1951, he returned to Manila and sought to identify the hallmark features of “Filipino artistic expression” by focusing his research and study on the history of colonial art in the Philippines. In 1961, he opened the Ateneo Art Gallery, the country’s first contemporary art museum, and published his book Philippine Religious Imagery in 1963. During this decade, modernism and abstracts entered the Philippine art scene. Zóbel began to work on large-format pieces, applying paint in sweeping black strokes on a white canvas and blending drawing and painting techniques in a single gesture. His Black Series was born. His abstract approach manifested influences of Sino-Japanese calligraphy, evident in his vision of finding a form of painting that would transcend all geographical boundaries.

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His early lecture notes, studies, drawings and paintings from his early life, as well as the works of the artists that were fundamental to his awakening, were loaned from the Philippines, Harvard University and some museums in Madrid for this exhibition.

Another remarkable feat of the exhibition is putting the original works of the Old Masters, from different renowned museums in Spain, in conversation with Zóbel’s studies and sketches. A traveller himself, Zóbel would visit museums before with a sketchbook in hand. “Drawing from paintings is a way of seeing them,” he wrote in one of his journals. In his studio, many of these drawings were annotated or coloured and later became the starting point for his abstract compositions. Among those that appealed to him, Diego Velásquez stood out. Zóbel became interested in Velásquez’s realism and made the Prado his laboratory to understand the acclaimed Spanish painter. His studies and sketches of Velásquez’s works, as well as those of other artists like Federico Barocci, Michaelangelo, Peter Paul Rubens and El Greco, are primarily with Fundación Juan March and Fogg Museum.