Saeta 82–Filadelfia, the only Saeta painted in America and from that much-coveted abstract series of Fernando Zóbel, is among the rare masterpieces in León Gallery’s The Magnificent September Auction 2026 on Sept. 12, 2026.
The masterpiece has finally come home to the Philippines, recently resurfaced after more than six decades in the private collection of Carl L. Steele, Zóbel’s close friend and a Philadelphia-born artist and interior designer.
A mile away from the historic Old Pine Street Presbyterian Church in downtown Philadelphia—which once counted among its faithful parishioners John Adams, a founding father of the United States and the second President of the American nation—stands a centuries-old townhouse built in the 1800s, its address 1606 Pine Street. In its penthouse once lived Carl L. Steele, who became a close friend of Fernando Zóbel.
This highly important Saeta–Filadelfia, from Steele’s collection, is now unveiled for the public after having been preserved immaculately in his private collection for more than 60 years.
Saeta–Filadelfia is exceptionally rare, being the only Saeta painted in the US; all Saetas were painted by Zóbel either in the Philippines (the early Saetas of 1957) or in Spain (the later Saetas). Zóbel gifted this Saeta–Filadelfia to Steele as a token of their friendship.
Carl L. Steele (Photo from ‘The Philadelphia Inquirer,’ legacy.com)
Saeta–Filadelfia was painted in September 1958 in Steele’s penthouse. Zóbel himself presented the idea that he wanted to paint a work just for Steele. According to the work’s current owner, Steele said that Zóbel himself asked him to buy the materials for his painting, then proceeded to paint it in a small makeshift studio in Steele’s penthouse.
The painting evokes a frenzied scene of Philly at dusk, the skyscraper lights dotting the cityscape like fireflies, mercury-vapor streetlights illuminating the urban arteries, and car headlights flickering along the highways.
Saeta–Filadelfia is a painting of pictorial tension and pulsating rhythms. Cool, crisp whites inspired by skyscrapers and streetlights clash with flashy oranges of car headlights, mapped across dusky grays that echo the twilight’s curtain call, blurring the boundaries of line and color.
Steele’s townhouse residence at 1606 Pine Street, Philadelphia, where Zóbel painted ‘Saeta–Filadelfia’ in the penthouse (Photo from Google Street View)
The whites of the painting conjure the imposing skyscrapers of Philly. Imagine the evening radiance of the ornate Second Empire Style Philadelphia City Hall, the Philadelphia Saving Fund Society (PSFS) Building, the US’ first modern skyscraper, built in the International Style; the Art Deco Philadelphia National Bank (Lincoln-Liberty) Building; and the beaux-arts Fidelity-Philadelphia Trust Company Building, all illuminating the historic city where America’s independence was first declared.
Much like Philadelphia’s moniker as “The City of Brotherly Love” (from the Greek “philos,” meaning love, and “adelphos,” meaning brother), Saeta–Filadelfia encapsulates Zóbel and Steele’s enduring brotherhood, forged by a shared passion for modern art and its endless possibilities for the creative mind.
Aerial view of Philadelphia, with the Philadelphia City Hall and the PSFS Building dominating the city’s skyline. Cars drive along the Vine Street Expressway, traveling east to west across the northern edge of Philadelphia’s central business district. The red and orange headlights and the city lights make up the calligraphic lines of ‘Saeta–Filadelfia.’ (Photo from the Boston Public Library, picryl.com)
But who exactly was Carl Steele?
Carl Steele (4 April 1929–29 January 2023), who belonged to Philadelphia’s upper crust, was an American painter who lived in the Philippines and became a member of the Art Association of the Philippines (AAP). He was a graduate of the Philadelphia Museum School, major in furniture design.
His name was first mentioned in Philippine periodicals during the 1953 AAP semi-annual exhibition held at the Northern Motors Showroom along Isaac Peral St. (now United Nations Avenue). Steele won the “Special Award for Best Still Life” for his work Mangoes and Orange.
Steele would become a regular in AAP competitions, his most notable participation being in the 1954 Annual, where he bagged the Honorable Mention for his Composition No. 2 . Steele’s debut solo show, sponsored by the AAP, was also the opening salvo of the newly established Contemporary Arts Gallery of Manuel A. Rodriguez, Sr. in 1954. Steele exhibited 10 collages made from photographs, newspapers, paper bags, gouache, and pen-and-ink drawings. He also showcased paintings in tempera and photographs.
Steele’s entry in the non-objective exhibition at PAG, titled ‘Fruits in a Basket’ (oil on canvas). (Photo from the Kalaw-Ledesma Foundation Archives)
The Saturday Mirror Magazine, in 6 March 1954 issue, reported that Steele’s exhibition was an instant hit among Manila’s culturati, and “attracted a large turnout of the ‘arty’ crowd Saturday afternoon to the opening at Contemporary Arts, the new gallery in the Luz Apartments, 677 A. Mabini, Ermita.”
Fernando Zóbel at the Philippine Art Gallery, during his joint exhibition with American sculptor Roberta Schneidman, in February 1958. (Photo from ‘Fernando Zóbel. Álbumes de prensa,’ 1957-1961, Archivo Fernando Zóbel, Biblioteca y Centro de Apoyo a la Investigación, Fundación Juan March)
When Steele held his debut solo show in the Philippines, Zóbel had been re-elected president of the AAP for 1954-1955, his second stint as head of the seminal organization. He had also won the prestigious First Prize for his iconic Carroza (which now hangs at the Ateneo Art Gallery, Zóbel’s own brainchild) in the 1953 AAP semi-annual.
At this time, Steele was also employed with Gimbels, an American department store and Macy’s chief competitor.
Pamphlet cover of the PAG’s ‘First Non-Objective Art Exhibition in the Philippines’ in December 1953, in which Steele and Zobel participated. (Photo from the Kalaw-Ledesma Foundation Archives)
In the last days of 1953, the Philippine Art Gallery (PAG), then humbly called “a little art shop,” mounted an exhibition titled The First Exhibition of Non-Objective Art in Tagala. Although it ran for only two days, from 12 to 13 December 1953, the exhibition capped the decades-long struggle of Filipino modern art for acceptance in the country’s creative landscape.
The exhibition demonstrated Filipino modernism at its most avant-garde, eschewing the need for objective and cognizable representation and elevating the merit of the plastic elements of painting, which are essentially the nucleus of the modernist’s continuing strive to liberate Philippine art from the shackles of classicism.
Zóbel was among the artists who participated in the landmark exhibition, bringing in seven paintings. Steele also interestingly participated, showcasing a still life, which critic Magtanggul Asa, author of the exhibition catalog, described as a work that “reduces the objects at a table to the barest forms so as to compose a medley of circulars and cordates [sic] that achieve action despite its subject being a still.”
Zóbel’s and Steele’s works were selected by Asa as two of the most distinguished out of 28 entries by 11 artists.
Zóbel and Steele may have forged friendships around the same time the PAG organized the landmark non-objective art exhibition. Both were also present in the lecture-tour and open forum held at the PAG for the said exhibition, participating in the artists panel, answering questions from the curious public. Even before that, Steele had participated in the Second Anniversary Show of the PAG in July 1953, alongside Zóbel, H.R. Ocampo, Cesar Legaspi, Romeo Tabuena, and a young Jose Joya.
The invitation to an exhibition at the Philadelphia Art Alliance, where Carl Steele participated. Steele penned a personal invitation to Zóbel, writing, ‘Dear Fernando — Do hope you will be able to make it. Carl.’ (Photo from Fernando Zóbel Álbumes de prensa, 1955-1957, Archivo Fernando Zóbel, Biblioteca y Centro de Apoyo a la Investigación, Fundación Juan March)
Steele probably moved back to Philadelphia sometime between 1955 and 1956, as evidenced by an invitation he sent to Zóbel for an exhibition of his works at the Philadelphia Art Alliance from 29 March to 12 April 1956. In the invitation, Steele cordially wrote, “Dear Fernando—Do hope you will be able to make it. Carl.”
This invitation was kept by Zóbel in his scrapbook, now entrusted in the care of the Fundación Juan March in Madrid. When he returned to the US, Steele became an instructor of interior design at the Philadelphia Museum School, his alma mater.
Another tangible piece of evidence of Zóbel and Steele’s friendship is a newspaper clipping kept by the former in his scrapbook announcing the exhibit Creations in Paper and Decorative Papers, in which Steele participated. The article wrote, “Carl L. Steele, interior design instructor at the Philadelphia Museum School, will show collages. Steele’s collages are made from various types of colored paper, string, bits of metal, and other materials.”
Zóbel and Steele’s friendship blossomed at a most fortuitous time: a most exciting time of creative experimentation and a renewed sense of artistic vigor amid the ruins of post-war Philippines. Both artists were finding their own creative forces and exploring various avenues of expression. Zóbel was spiraling into a creative and existential dilemma, beginning to abandon the figurative, Filipino neo-realist style in favor of a non-objective one. He was delighted by the works of the abstract expressionists Mark Rothko and Franz Kline and the Spanish avant-garde informalistas Luis Feito, Alberto Burri, and Guillermo Delgado, among others. Meanwhile, Steele’s primary concern was sensory experience, using a fusion of ornate squares and circles melded with fresh, crisp colors. Even his collages and photographs emphasized decorative sensibilities.
The two had likely shared the same sentiments on non-objectivism. Both showed an inclination towards the aesthetics of the fundamentals: color, line, shape, and texture, and their paramount importance in non-objectivism as “breathing spaces” of sensory delight amid the trauma prevalent in a barren, war-torn landscape.
In letting the plastic elements shape the direction of the work, the enjoyment of art becomes a matter of broadening spaces and avenues for even the non-artistically inclined person to appreciate a painting, as design, colors, lines, and texture are elevated, since they are what the senses first perceive, grasp, and understand.
All this existed in the context of the overwhelming loss and grief of the period.
In 1973, Steele established the Carl Steele Associates, specialists in interior design, at 1606 Pine Street, the same address of his penthouse where Zóbel painted Saeta 82–Filadelfia. A gentle soul, Steele was praised by clients for his extensive knowledge of the arts and his innate sophisticated sense of style. His interior designs were both chic and timeless. One of Steele’s clients in the late ’80s wrote in his obituary that “his interiors and selection of artwork were elegant and modern.”
Steele was also a noted art collector. In his trove were works by fellow American artists, including Alexander Calder and the Greek-American painter Theodoros Stamos, the youngest of the iconic “Irascibles,” the original group of abstract expressionists (that also included Pollock, de Kooning, and Rothko) who protested against the Met and its president, Roland Redmond, over its discrimination of abstract art.
As if in the spirit of Philadelphia being America’s “Cradle of Liberty,” for its role in the nation’s fight for freedom from British bondage, Zóbel’s Saetas are paintings of emancipation, an artist’s declaration of creative assertion and confidence.
SUBHEAD: In Zóbel’s paintings, the saeta becomes vibrant linear configurations of calligraphic intensity…. with the use of a hypodermic syringe (needle removed and filled with oil paint)
Saeta refers both to the traditional Catholic song of Andalusia performed during Holy Week, lamenting the Passion of Christ and the Via Crucis, and an “arrow,” connoting the piercing sorrow reflected and manifested by the mournful devotional song. In Zóbel’s paintings, the saeta becomes vibrant linear configurations of calligraphic intensity laid out on a rhapsody of color fields with the use of a hypodermic syringe (needle removed and filled with oil paint), which, interestingly, the artist said was his favorite drawing piece, as it was “easy to handle and very sensitive to differences in angle and pressure.” He was inspired by seeing a cook write “Happy Birthday” in icing on a cake.
In his conversations with Rafael Perez-Madero, published in the all-important monograph Zóbel: La Serie Blanca (1978), Zóbel affirmed that the Saetas are “as abstract as their subject matter.” “The spectator never quite knows what he’s dealing with,” Zóbel stated.
“The Saetas are completely abstract in the sense that they contain no figurative references,” Zóbel said. “This series of pictures—some hundreds or so oils that begin in 1957 and gradually turn into something different towards the middle of 1959—constitute my most purely abstract works to date.”
The Saetas, in the visual vocabulary of Zóbel, are not lamentations in the literal sense, but a paean to an old life and practice and the birth of something new that is deeper and profoundly introspective.
The governing principle of the Saetas is movement articulated in the languages of the plastic elements of line and color. Zóbel aimed to express, in a non-imitative manner, the movement he observed and felt: from people and natural phenomena to urban, industrial, and cultural happenings.
Invitation to Steele’s first solo show in Manila, sponsored by the AAP and held at the Contemporary Arts Gallery, which Manuel Rodriguez, Sr. had newly established. (Photo from the Kalaw-Ledesma Foundation Archives)
In 1956, Zóbel also went on a business trip to Japan for his family business. He encountered Japanese aesthetics at the Temple of Ryōan-ji in Kyoto, where he saw “all those lines meticulously drawn with a rake (that) produce an unsettling effect.”
When he returned to Manila, Zóbel refurbished his Forbes Park home along traditional Japanese aesthetics, recruiting the young Lindy Locsin as architect. The renovated house incorporated a low ceiling and matted floors and featured a moon-watching bridge, a bamboo garden, and even a sand garden like that at the Temple of Ryōan-ji.
Photo of Japanese sand gardens in Kyoto that Zóbel took on his 1956 trip to Japan. The rake-drawn lines inspired the calligraphic configuration of the ‘Saetas.’ (Photo from Fernando Zóbel. Álbumes de prensa, 1957-1961, Archivo Fernando Zóbel, Biblioteca y Centro de Apoyo a la Investigación, Fundación Juan March)
Profoundly inspired by the calligraphic lines drawn with a rake in the sand gardens of Kyoto that symbolize the rhythm of meditation, Zóbel’s Saetas are born of logical spontaneity. The calligraphic lines, spontaneous and dynamic as they are on the surface, are actually controlled and contemplated upon, not hastily laid out on canvas, with Zóbel “rehearsing” his lines through numerous preparatory drawings, similar to how the Chinese and the Japanese would experiment systematically and extensively through sketches and studies, exhibiting their mastery of draftsmanship.
Zóbel’s Forbes Park home refurbished by the young Lindy Locsin in the style of Japanese aesthetics. (Photo from Fernando Zóbel. Álbumes de prensa, 1957-1961, Archivo Fernando Zóbel, Biblioteca y Centro de Apoyo a la Investigación, Fundación Juan March)
When Zóbel arrived at his idea for the Saetas, the throes of artistic and existential dilemma had been alleviated—even for only a while. By the time Zóbel debuted his Saetas at the Philippine Art Gallery in July 1957, the perfect melding of the Oriental and the Occidental, bridging the two worlds he lived in, had materialized—a wedding of the unbridled expression of Western abstract expressionism and the meditative and refined practice of Eastern calligraphy.
León Gallery’s ‘The Magnificent September Auction 2026′ will be held on Saturday, 12 September 2026, at 2 pm. The preview exhibit will run from September 5 to 11, from 9 am to 7 pm, at G/F Eurovilla 1, Rufino corner Legazpi Streets, Legazpi Village, Makati City.
To browse the online catalog, visit https://leon-gallery.com/. For further inquiries, email info@leon-gallery.com or contact tel. no. 8856 2781. Follow León Gallery on their social media pages for timely updates: Facebook: www.facebook.com/leongallerymakati and Instagram: @leongallerymakati.
