Antoni Tàpies

Biography of Antoni Tàpies

Antoni Tàpies was born in Catalonia on December 12, 1923.

Deeply marked by the Civil War, it was in the mid-1940s that he decided to dedicate himself exclusively to painting. His early influences were Dadaist (especially for collages) and Surrealist.

But soon he became interested in philosophy, oriental art (calligraphy), and "informal art." Thus began the era of work dedicated to the wise mixtures of materials, including pulverized marble and sand that he added to oil painting. He also used all kinds of recycled materials.

In the early 1970s, his compositions began to express violent protest. His works, which he then described as "battlefields where wounds multiply infinitely," are the expression of a torn and distressing world.

He does not paint a subject, his canvases are now imprints, graffiti, traces, stamped with Tapies, painter among men, in this world.

In 1984, he created the Antoni Tàpies Foundation to promote the study and knowledge of Modern Art. To do this, in 1990, he invested in Barcelona, ​​the former Montaner i Simon House, built between 1881 and 1885 by Luis Domenech i Montaner, a modernist architect. Since the 1990s, the Foundation has hosted many exhibitions and also houses a vast collection of Tapies' works, donated by the artist himself.

Crowned during his long career, during which he created more than 8000 works, with numerous awards and honors (including the Picasso Medal from Unesco, the Velasquez Prize for Plastic Arts, or elevated to the rank of Marquis by King Juan Carlos), he entered, during his lifetime, the pantheon of the greatest Spanish painters.

Antoni Tàpies passed away in Barcelona on February 6, 2012, at the age of 88, leaving behind the image of a fighting painter who was of his time but also at the forefront of it.

(c) Natacha PELLETIER for PASSION ESTAMPES