Antoni Tàpies | |
|---|---|
.jpg) Tàpies in 2002 | |
| Born | (1923-12-13)13 December 1923 Barcelona, Spain |
| Died | 6 February 2012(2012-02-06) (aged 88) Barcelona, Spain |
| Known for | Painting,sculpture,lithography |
| Movement | Art informel |
| Awards | Praemium Imperiale |
Antoni Tàpies i Puig, 1stMarquess of Tàpies (Catalan:[ənˈtɔniˈtapi.əs]; 13 December 1923 – 6 February 2012) was aCatalan painter, sculptor, and art theorist.[1]
The son of Josep Tàpies i Mestre and Maria Puig i Guerra, Antoni Tàpies Puig was born in Barcelona on 13 December 1923. His father was a lawyer andCatalan nationalist who served briefly with theRepublican government. Due to this, Tàpies grew up in an environment where he was exposed to a variety of cultural and social experiences of leaders in the Catalan public life and its republicanism. His maternal grandmother also exposed him to this world with her great involvement in civil and political activities.
Tàpies was first introduced tomodern art as he enteredsecondary school in 1934. He became inspired by the famous Christmas issue of the magazine,D’ací i d’allà, which contained reproductions of works by artists such asMarcel Duchamp,Georges Braque,Wassily Kandinsky, andPablo Picasso.[2] At 17, Tàpies suffered a near-fatalheart attack caused bytuberculosis. He spent two years as a convalescent in the mountains, reading widely and pursuing an interest in art that had already expressed itself when he was in his early teens.[3]
Tàpies studied at theGerman School of Barcelona. After studying law for three years, he devoted himself from 1943 onwards only to his painting. In 1945 Tàpies began experimenting with materials. At this time he also became increasingly interested inphilosophy, especially that ofJean-Paul Sartre as well asEastern thought.[4] He became known as one of Spain's most renowned artists in the second half of the 20th century.[5] Hisabstract art and other avant-garde works were displayed in many major museums all over the world.[6] In 1954, Tàpies married Teresa Barba Fabregas. Together, they had three children Antoni, Miguel and Clara.[7]He lived mainly inBarcelona.
Tàpies died on 6 February 2012 at the age of 88.[6]
Tàpies first came into contact with contemporary art as a teenager through the magazineD’Ací i D’Allà, published in Barcelona, and during theSpanish Civil War (1936–39), while he was still at school, he taught himself to draw and paint.[8] On a French government scholarship in the early 1950s, he lived inParis, to which he often returned. Both in Europe and beyond, the highly influential French critic and curatorMichel Tapié enthusiastically promoted the work of Tàpies.
In 1948, Tàpies helped co-found the first post-war movement in Spain known asDau al Set which was connected to theSurrealist andDadaist Movements. The main leader and founder ofDau al Set was the poetJoan Brossa. The movement also had a publication of the same name,Dau al Set. Tàpies started as asurrealist painter, his early works were influenced byPaul Klee andJoan Miró;[9] but soon became aninformal artist, working in a style known aspintura matèrica, in which non artistic materials are incorporated into the paintings. In 1953, he began working inmixed media; which is considered his most original contribution to art. One of the first to create serious art in this way, he added clay and marble dust to his paint and used waste paper, string, and rags (Grey and Green Painting, Tate Gallery, London, 1957).Canvas Burned to Matter from c. 1960, in the collection of theHonolulu Museum of Art, is an example of the artist'smixed mediaassemblages that combine the principles ofDada andSurrealism.[10]
Tàpies' international reputation was well established by the end of the 1950s. From the late 1950s to early 1960s, Tàpies worked withEnrique Tábara,Antonio Saura,Manolo Millares, and many other Spanish Informalist artists. In 1966, he was arrested at a clandestine assembly at theUniversity of Barcelona; his work of the early 1970s is marked by symbols ofCatalan identity (which was anathema toFranco).[11] In 1974 he made a series of lithographs calledAssassins and displayed them in theGalerie Maeght in Paris, in honour of militantanarchistSalvador Puig Antich's memory. In about 1970 (influenced bypop art), he began incorporating more substantial objects into his paintings, such as parts of furniture. Tàpies's ideas have had worldwide influence on art, especially in the realms of painting, sculpture, etchings, and lithography. Examples of his work are found in numerous major international collections. His work is associated with bothTachisme andAbstract Expressionism.
The paintings produced by Tàpies, later in the 1970s and in the 1980s, reveal his application of this aesthetic of meditative emptiness, for example in spray-painted canvases with linear elements suggestive of Oriental calligraphy, in mixed-media paintings that extended the vocabulary of Art informel, and in his oblique allusions to imagery within a fundamentally abstract idiom, as inImprint of a Basket on Cloth (1980).[8] Among the artists' work linked in style to that of Tàpies is that of the American painterJulian Schnabel as both have been connected to the art term "Matter".[12]
Tàpies began producinggraphic work in 1947. He produced collector’s books and dossiers in association with poets and writers such asAlberti,Bonnefoy,Du Bouchet,Brodsky,Brossa,Daive,Dupin,Foix,Frémon,Gimferrer,Guillén,Jabès,Mestres Quadreny,Mitscherlich,Paz,Saramago,Takiguchi,Ullán,Valente, andZambrano.[13]
Tàpies has written essays which have been collected in a series of publications, some translated into different languages:La pràctica de l’art (1970),L’art contra l’estètica, (1974),Memòria personal (1978),La realitat com a art (1982),Per un art modern i progressista (1985),Valor de l’art (1993) andL’art i els seus llocs (1999).[14] These works include Tàpies reflecting on things such as art, life, and politics. He also discusses the social role of art and the artist, reflects on the influences of his work, and explains his artistic as well as political views.[15]
Throughout the span of his life, Tàpies was associated with a number of movements such asArt Informel andHaute Pâte, both of which were popular in post-war Europe.[16] He became a part of theavant-garde group Dau al Set in 1948, a group that had strong ties to Surrealism. Early works of his were surrealistic, but in 1953 he began working in abstract art. Some of Tàpies's most famous and original works fall within this genre. They are characterized by his use of marble dust and clay that he mixed with his paints as well as the incorporation of found objects such as string, paper, and cloth. In the late 1960s into the early 1970s Tàpies began to be influenced by the movement ofpop art. Because of this he began using larger items, such as pieces of furniture, in his works.[17]
TheFundació Antoni Tàpies is a museum and cultural center located inCarrer d'Aragó, inBarcelona that is dedicated to the works and life of Antoni Tàpies. It was established in 1984 by Tàpies himself. His intent was to create a forum that would promote the study as well as the knowledge of modern and contemporary art. It includes the temporary exhibitions, film seasons, lectures, symposiums, as well as different activities and showings of Tàpies's work. The foundation owns one of the most extensive collections of Tàpies's work, mostly donated by Tàpies himself. It also contains a large library that is dedicated solely to the artists of our century and the modern literature and documentation pertaining to the genre.[23]
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| Spanish nobility | ||
|---|---|---|
| New title | Marquess of Tápies 9 April 2010 – 6 February 2012 | Succeeded by |
