ANTONà TÀPIES PUIG (Barcelona, 1923 - 2012).
Untitled, 1970.
Paint and pencil on cardboard.
Attached certificate of authenticity issued by the Comissió Tàpies.
Work registered in the Archive of the artist's complete works, no. T-9836.
Signed in the lower right-hand corner.
Measurements: 42 x 29.5 cm; 77 x 65 cm (frame).
In this sober painting Tapies emphasises in the composition two elements which he arranges on an ochre background with a complex tonal gradation. They are an expressive red line that denotes the artist's passion and a cross, an iconographic element that Tapies made his own. A cross that is not religious, but spiritual, as the artist described in the article Cruces, equis y otras contradicciones, included in the book El arte y sus lugares (1999): "The interest in the cross is a consequence of the great variety of meanings, often partial and apparently different, that have been given to it: crosses (and also Xs), as coordinates of space, as an image of the unknown, as a symbol of mystery, as a sign of a territory, as a mark to sacralise different places, objects, people or fragments of the body, as a stimulus to inspire mystical feelings, to remember death and, specifically, the death of Christ, as an expression of a concept, paradoxical, as a mathematical sign, to erase another image, to manifest a disagreement, to deny something."
Co-founder of "Dau al Set" in 1948, Tàpies began to exhibit at the Salones de Octubre in Barcelona, as well as at the Salón de los Once held in Madrid in 1949. After his first solo exhibition at the Galerías Layetanas, he travels to Paris in 1950, with a grant from the Institut Français. In 1953 he had a solo exhibition at Martha Jackson's gallery in New York. From then on, he exhibited his work, both in group and solo shows, all over the world, in leading galleries and museums such as the Guggenheim in New York and the Museum of Modern Art in Paris. Since the 1970s, anthologies have been devoted to him in Tokyo, New York, Rome, Amsterdam, Madrid, Venice, Milan, Vienna and Brussels. Self-taught, Tàpies created his own style within the avant-garde art of the 20th century, combining tradition and innovation in an abstract style full of symbolism, giving great importance to the material substratum of the work. It is worth noting the marked spiritual sense given by the artist to his work, where the material support transcends its state to signify a profound analysis of the human condition. Tàpies' work has been highly valued internationally, being exhibited in the most prestigious museums in the world. Throughout his career he has received numerous prizes and distinctions, including the Praemium Imperiale of Japan, the National Prize for Culture, the Grand Prix for Painting in France, the Wolf Foundation for the Arts (1981), the Gold Medal of the Generalitat de Catalunya (1983), the Prince of Asturias Prize for the Arts (1990), the Picasso Medal of Unesco (1993) and the Velázquez Prize for the Plastic Arts (2003). Antoni Tàpies is represented in major museums all over the world, such as the foundation that bears his name in Barcelona, the Reina Sofía in Madrid, the Guggenheim in Berlin, Bilbao and New York, the Fukoka Art Museum in Japan, the MoMA in New York and the Tate Gallery in London.