Fernando Zobel

A gift from the artist to John and Mary Risley

Thence by descent to the present owners

The painting is in good condition overall, as is the masonite board with neither cracks nor warping apparent. There's evidence of minor wear and handling along the edges and corners with the associated nicks, but are none are visible when framed. Paint layers are well preserved and in stable position.  Only examination under ultraviolet light reveals scattered minor spots of retouching, particularly along the edges and margins and with an area in the middle right register. The colors of the actual painting are stronger and richer in reality and the catalogue illustration is slightly too yellow in undertone. Framed.
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Two Figures is a rare and historically important work in Fernando Zobel's artistic development. Only one other painting from this period had been offered at auction before. The current painting was executed in 1953, the same year that Zobel started experimenting with abstraction, during which he destroyed numerous paintings that he was unsatisfied with. Two Figures was one of the few paintings that came up to par with the artist's personal standards. It was a period of self-discovery that marked the artist's turning point, when he became involved in the growth of the Art Association of the Philippines and the Philippine Art Gallery which nurtured modern artists and promoted non-objective art in the post-war years.

The Philippine Art Gallery held a successful exhibition of paintings and sculptures by 21 artists in 1953-54 that travelled to New York City and Washington, D.C., which included Zobel. It was an exciting time in the Philippines art scene with the controversial rise of Neo Realism as the headline. At the core of the movement's philosophy is the insistence that "reality, not of objects and subject matter, but of relationships. 'Relationships' is a key word in understanding what their movement was about: it refers to the way line, colour, shape, texture and space interact – establishing points of movement and rest, tension and relaxation, in the design of a painting." (Gatbonton, Art Philippines, The Crucible Workshop, Manila, Philippines, 1992, p. 118)

Two Figures depicts important figures from the church and court, possibly that of a pope and a king. Each is carrying their iconic emblem, a cross and a sword, respectively. The gritty rawness of the scratched, uneven surface, free and expressive brushstroke, naive forms, and the irregular black outlines could be compared to Jean Dubuffet and the Art Brut movement that took place around the same period. The contrast between the subject matter, which symbolizes everything formal and conservative, and the pictorial form of the painting, is what makes the present work a true representation of the modernism that the Neo Realists were attempting to achieve. It is only upon a direct comparison with the day's prevailing Academic art, such as those by Fernando Amorsolo, Felix Martinez and Juan Luna, that one realizes what a breakthrough the present work is and the magnitude of changes that Zobel and his fellow Neo Realists had set in motion.