Page 19 - Studio International - October 1966

Sense of depth
Distance. Continued lines, without end, without
horizon.
Nearness. Walls, hard static forms.
Space. Points, circles, spheres.
Sense of motion
Open, loose forms, free lines, single letters scattered •
t like voices, broken angles.
Sense of people
People reduced to signs based on their salient
characteristics.
Below, examples of some of the infinite interpreta-
tions of people possible:
I would like to paint sound.
I don't describe. I suggest.
I want the people in my pictures to be alive, each
one doing something, occupying his place. For me a painting is not an isolated work. It is a part, the excess, keeping only that which recreates a given
I paint the poor hiding their privacy. I paint what they or a piece, of another, larger painting that goes on mood.
show. The burdens they carry. The richness of their without end...that is why certain figures, colours, I continually try to evolve while maintaining contact
colour, their life, their breath....I paint the poor with objects go right beyond the edge of the canvas, and with my previous work. The paintings of the past two
the wish to reach towards them. Those poor who live why certain lines without limit continue till they reach, years were characterized by a rigorous order in their
in community. like everything, the end. composition, in the placing and in the interpretation
The purity of the art of children is my point of of their component figures. This order, however, was
departure. Relation of my work to the life that surrounds us less strict than the one maintained in 1957, during my
I take the advantage of my years of study, but each Photographs are quickly learnt. I want the painting to constructive phase.
work returns to the very beginning. be a constant discovery. I think it important to maintain a strict discipline
When I paint, I come close to the rumour of everyday I want to convey a sense of change and movement- from time to time in order to gain later in freedom.
life. I simply cannot turn my back on what I see and on the change and motion of reality-which remains My work today is more intuitive than it used to be,
what I happen to like. stilled in photographs. though order persists. It may seem invisible, but it is
that market with awnings I want my plastic document to stay alive; I don't there.
the walking of a city want it to be like a letter sleeping in a file. There are always lines of surfaces that divide or
people who breathe.... A camera captures everything in front of it. I cancel enclose.

Museum of Spanish abstract art the nature of our collection, suffice to say that we recognition, though we have not attempted to repre-
employ it in a broad and popularly accepted sense, sent every Spanish abstract artist, or to create a
without attempting semantic accuracy. By using it collection illustrating the historical development of
A new museum, devoted to Spanish abstract art,
we merely wish to indicate that our collection is the style in question.... I think that we can assert that
recently opened in Cuenca, Spain, under the direction
limited, in a rough and ready fashion, to works every time we were faced with a work of art that we
of the painters Fernando Zobel and Gustavo Torner.
characterized by predominantly non-figurative intent; unanimously found desirable, no effort or sacrifice
Among the painters and sculptors represented are
a field that 'ranges from the most disciplined hard- was spared to obtain it. And in order to further
Chillida, Luis Feito, Amadeo Gabino, Antonio Lorenzo,
edge painting to the most instinctive of "action" improve the quality of our selective process we
Millares, Mompo, Lucio Munoz, Oteiza, Eusebio
styles. The Spaniards included represent a genera- invited, whenever possible, the assistance of the
Sempere, Serrano, and Tapies.
tion roughly limited by age and by a certain affinity artist in making a choice among his works. Finally, in
Fernando Zobel describes its inception and purpose
of aims. It is a generation some years junior to the end an attempt to avoid unnecessary pressures, we have
in these words:
of World War II, and seems to symbolize something consistently discouraged the gift of works of art, while
'Over ten years ago, deeply impressed by the quality
like the continuity of the artistic renewal initiated by fully granting that in most cases the offer of gifts was
of the abstract work of my fellow-painters and dis-
the era of Picasso, Juan Gris, and Miro; it seems closer made in a spirit of true generosity.'
tressed by the fact that the finest examples of our art
to those in spirit than to its immediate chronological The collection includes about a hundred paintings,
were being purchased abroad, I started a collection
predecessors. over a dozen sculptures and some two hundred prints
of paintings, sculptures, drawings, and prints.
'We have tried to include representative works of all and drawings, plus a choice of posters and of books
'Slowly the importance of the collection increased
those artists who have gained international critical illustrated or produced by abstract Spanish artists.
until I suddenly realized that it was superior in quality
to any other existing collection of Spanish abstract
art. I felt a kind of obligation to display it properly and
to place it at the disposal of the public. Accordingly, One of Francis Souza's drawings for Inner Circle by Jerzy Peterkiewicz, recently
some friends and I spent a good part of the Winter of published by Macmillan. The originals are being exhibited at Tama Gallery this month
1962 exploring the city of Toledo in search of an
appropriate building, with indifferent success.
'One June evening in 1963, while dining with the
artists, Eusebio Sempere, Abel Martin, and Gustavo
Torner, the subject of the house in Toledo cropped
up in the conversation. Torner, who was born and
lives in Cuenca, made the observation that the famous
Hanging Houses were undergoing extensive repairs
and that their final use had yet to be determined....
(These houses are now host to the new museum.)
'As to the adjective "abstract" that characterizes