.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
In La Porteria (The Goal) (Lot 531), Zóbel abstracts a goalpost into its bare lines of construction, situated amidst what appears to be an expansive field under an equally far-reaching skyline. With the subtle use of diagonal lines that cut through the composition, the painting is further imbued with a sense of swift movement and a dynamic intensity that is rarely so clearly articulated in Zóbel's works.
Within his body of coloured paintings, La Porteria (The Goal) stands out as an interesting work. Between the years 1959 and 1963, Zóbel explored the potentiality of black in his paintings, resulting in the negra series. From 1963 onwards, he increasingly returned to color, while exploring the monochromatic dimension of painting. It was as though painting in black and white purified his vision.
Color became suggestive in works that continued to affirm Zobel's commitment to abstraction. Zobel aimed to depict not the descriptive details of a scene or an image but only the most essential element of the chosen subject, a pretext for the gesture of painting.
From the 1960s until the year of his death, the theme of movement broadened to include the landscape in Cuenca, the elusive colors of the river Jucar, the energy of football in Seville, and finally, dialogues with other paintings. La Porteria (The Goal) is a rare painting out in the market that takes as its real world pictorial representation a football scene.
Within his body of coloured paintings, La Porteria (The Goal) stands out as an interesting work. Between the years 1959 and 1963, Zóbel explored the potentiality of black in his paintings, resulting in the negra series. From 1963 onwards, he increasingly returned to color, while exploring the monochromatic dimension of painting. It was as though painting in black and white purified his vision.
Color became suggestive in works that continued to affirm Zobel's commitment to abstraction. Zobel aimed to depict not the descriptive details of a scene or an image but only the most essential element of the chosen subject, a pretext for the gesture of painting.
From the 1960s until the year of his death, the theme of movement broadened to include the landscape in Cuenca, the elusive colors of the river Jucar, the energy of football in Seville, and finally, dialogues with other paintings. La Porteria (The Goal) is a rare painting out in the market that takes as its real world pictorial representation a football scene.