Around the date when Tovar painted this piece, he took part in the exhibition Diez pintores sevillanos, in recognition of his membership —together with Manuel Salinas (1940) and Juan Suárez (1946)— of the budding avant-garde coming into being in Seville at the time.

This work belongs to Malaga, a series the artist made between 1981 and 1982. Yet nothing in the work casts light on the reason for this title. He held no truck with the contest between figuration or abstraction at the time: “instead of the opposition between figurative and abstract, I prefer to talk about replacing formalism with a new concern for contents; of painting as a goal, of painting as a means of expression,” a statement clearly echoing American abstraction.

Tovar’s works resonate with those made around the same time by José Guerrero (1914-1991), who introduced into Spain the theories current in the New York art scene. However, the most evident influence—and one sustained throughout his career—would be Mark Rothko (1903-1970), with those large fields of intense colour, full of subtle nuances. In this series the main focus is given to darker, almost black, masses of colour or, in the case of this particular work, deep blue.

Composition is particularly germane for Tovar, who began by arranging his works in a geometric, symmetric and paused fashion. However, aware of the possible shortcomings, in the 1970s he started to incorporate asymmetry and tension to undermine the apparent calm. In this painting, with its patent compositional tension, Tovar makes an astute play of asymmetry.