Name: Lines that Connect: Dialogue on Zóbel’s Foundational Art Collections
Start: 2025-09-20T16:30:00+08:00
End: 2025-09-20T18:00:00+08:00
Location: 1 St. Andrew’s Road, Singapore, Singapore 178957

$Lines that Connect: Dialogue on Z\u00f3bel\u2019s Foundational Art Collections$

Lines that Connect: Dialogue on Zóbel’s Foundational Art Collections
Sat 20 Sep | 4.30pm - 6pm | City Hall Wing, Level B1, The Ngee Ann Kongsi Auditorium | Free, registration required: https://www.nationalgallery.sg/sg/en/talks/Lines-that-Connect--Dialogue-on-Z-bel-s-Foundational-Art-Collections.html
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“For Zóbel, all the other spaces were subsumed in the museum, which was at once home, study and collection; it was also library in that one goes to a museum after having read, and at the same time travel, although more in time than in space; travel whose tone was literally conversational.”
Manuel Fontán del Junco, “Fernando Zóbel: Becoming Two Lands”, in "Fernando Zóbel: Order is Essential", 2025, p.62.
Beyond his acclaim as an artist whose works are exhibited in major museums, Fernando Zóbel was also a passionate patron of the arts. His deep appreciation for both Philippine and Spanish art led to the formation of remarkable collections, which he generously donated first to the Ateneo de Manila University, establishing the Ateneo Art Gallery in 1960, and later to found the Museo de Arte Abstracto Español (Museum of Spanish Abstract Art; MSAA) in Cuenca in 1966.
In this programme, Ma. Victoria “Boots” Herrera (Director and Chief Curator, Ateneo Art Gallery) and Celina Quintas (Deputy Director, Museum of Spanish Abstract Art) share insights into the origins and development of their respective institutions. The discussion will be followed by a conversation moderated by Clarissa Chikiamco, co-curator of "Fernando Zóbel: Order Is Essential".
Celina Quintas will speak in Spanish, with simultaneous interpretation (Spanish to English) available on site.
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About the Exhibition
“Order is essential," the transcontinental Fernando Zóbel once remarked. This philosophy guided both his artistic practice and his methodical exploration of the world. Yet, within this order, his work reveals a tension between structure and spontaneity.
This survey of his art invites you to travel with Zóbel to North America, Asia and Europe, where he practised from the 1940s to the 1980s. You will see his fascination with art history and American Abstract Expressionism in Boston and Rhode Island, his experiments with the syringe as a device for painting in Manila, his deft compositions of black paint on white canvases in Madrid, and his homage to the landscapes of Cuenca. As we trace his travels across the world, we will discover how modernism took different forms in each place and time.
For more information, visit: https://www.nationalgallery.sg/sg/en/exhibitions/fernando-zobel-order-is-essential.html
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