Still life with Palm Tree

In the mid-1970s, Fernando Zóbel focused on a series of works in black, white and grey that he entitled The white Series. This group was the result of a lengthy period of previous pictorial investigation. Throughout his career Zóbel based himself on a strictly academic system consisting of sketch-drawing-preliminary design-painting. This method enabled him to develop a kind of lyric painting that placed him within the context of Spanish abstract painting of the 1950s and 1960s. Landscape, which was the central theme in his work, was represented as an exquisite synthesis in which the painter only made use of those elements that he considered essential for an evocation of the natural world. In The white Series this synthesis became even more schematic and analytical. In it, Zóbel did not explicitly decide to abandon colour in order to paint in black and white but rather reduced his palette until he was left with a wide range of greys. The absence of colour gives these works a sparseness that in turn results in a pronounced luminosity. Although it might not seem so, the limited number of pictorial devices deployed in their creation actually enhances the lyrical evocation of reality that characterises all of Zóbel’s output.