ANTONI CLAVÉ I SANMARTà (Barcelona, 1913 - Saint Tropez, France, 2005).
"Untitled.
Mixed media on paper.
Signed in the lower left corner.
Size: 76 x 57 cm; 101 x 71 cm (frame).
In this mixed media painting on paper, Clavé superimposes realities that seem to emerge from an organic background, like spectral faces interspersed with dense brushstrokes and areas that appear to have been resolved by frottage. Thus, organic insinuations are laminated with geometrical configurations. Clavé experiments with a variety of techniques and languages, so that on the same surface, touches of spatula, gesture, expressionism and abstraction dialogue with each other. The result is an arduous dialogue with the Baroque tradition and its play of chiaroscuro.
Antoni Clavé is one of the most important figures in Spanish contemporary art. Trained at the San Jordi School of Fine Arts in Barcelona, Clavé initially devoted himself to advertising graphics, illustration and the decorative arts. In 1936 he took an active part in the Civil War, joining the Republican ranks, which led him to go into exile in France at the end of the war. That same year, 1939, he exhibited the drawings he had made on the battlefields. He settled in Paris, where he met Vuillard, Bonnard and Picasso. From this period onwards, Clavé began to develop an oeuvre marked by a different, less classical style. During this period his figures gradually lost their precision and form, giving way to the lines and a personal range of colours and textures that were to become the main features of his works from that time onwards. He was already enjoying great international prestige at the time when he began to be recognised in Spain, after his exhibition at the Sala Gaspar in Barcelona in 1956. In 1952 he made the sets for Charles Vidor's film "Hans Christian Andersen", and was nominated for an Oscar. In 1954 he gave up decorating to devote himself to painting. In the 1960s he painted a tribute to El Greco, and his painting at this time reveals the influences of that master, as well as those of the Baroque painters. Of particular relevance is the theme of the knight with his hand on his chest, a reference that would be repeated in Clavé's future works. This period is characterised by the definitive transition to abstraction. In the 1970s Clavé's work continued to evolve, using various techniques such as collage and inventing new ones such as "papier froissé", the result of a chance use of aerosol on crumpled paper. In 1978, the Musée National d'Art Moderne in Paris, now the Centre Georges Pompidou, devoted a retrospective to him that made him one of the most prestigious artists of his generation. In the 1980s he dedicated a series of works to Picasso under the title "To Don Pablo". His latest works are characterised by the recreation of textures within abstraction, with a profuse use of papier froissé. He was awarded prizes at the Hallimark in New York in 1948, at the Venice Biennial in 1954 and at the Tokyo International Biennial in 1957. In 1984 the Spanish state recognised his artistic value with the exhibition of more than one hundred of his works in the Spanish pavilion at the Venice Biennale. That same year he was awarded the Gold Medal of the Generalitat de Catalunya. Clavé's work can be found, among many others, in the Bilbao Fine Arts Museum, the Tate Gallery, the Modern Art Museum in Paris and Tokyo, the British Museum and the Reina Sofía Museum in Madrid.