A citizen of Spain, although Filipino by birth, Fernando Zobel (Manila, 1924 – Rome, 1984) was educated and then developed as an artist in the diverse and distant settings of the United States, the Philippines, and Spain. In 1961 he became a permanent Spanish resident, and shortly thereafter he founded the Museum of Spanish Abstract Art in Cuenca, which was to become an important intellectual and artistic nucleus for the avant-garde artists of the Spanish postwar era.

Accordingly, we find in Fernando Zobel a convergence of such diverse influences as American informalism, the expressionism of Spanish abstract art, and Far Eastern calligraphy. They would all contribute decisively to the fulfillment of a style and technique that Zobel started to develop in 1956, when the artist fully embraced abstraction and began eliminating whatever he deemed superfluous from his work. At the same time, he was giving artistic expression to the imprint which the reality he observed left in his uncluttered mind.