ANTONI TÀPIES PUIG (Barcelona, 1923 - 2012).
Untitled, from the Suite Olympic Centennial, 1992.
Lithograph on 270 grams Vélin d'Arches paper, copy 110/250.
Signed and numbered in pencil.
This work is part of the "Suite Olympic Centennial", complete edition 110/250, which will be auctioned on 27 September 2022, in 50 consecutive lots numbered 35245230 to 35245280.
Measurements: 63 x 89'5 cm.
Antoni Tàpies was initiated into art during his long convalescence from a lung disease. He progressively devoted himself more intensely to drawing and painting, and finally gave up his law studies to devote himself entirely to art. Co-founder of "Dau al Set" in 1948, he 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 travelled to Paris in 1950, with a grant from the Institut Français. In those years he began to take part in the Venice Biennale, exhibited again at the Layetanas and, after a show in Chicago, in 1953 he had a solo exhibition at Martha Jackson's gallery in New York. Since then he has 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 Musée d'Art Moderne in Paris. He has been awarded prizes such as the Prince of Asturias, the Praemium Imperiale of the Japan Art Association, the National Culture Prize, the French Grand Prix for Painting, etc., and anthologies have been dedicated to him in Tokyo (1976), New York (1977 and 2005), Rome (1980), Amsterdam (1980), Madrid (1980), Venice (1982), Milan (1985), Vienna (1986) and Brussels (1986). He 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.
Tàpies' work falls within the framework of Informalism and the material aspect is fundamental to it; the scribble, the brushstroke full of pictorial matter, the collage... But the symbolic aspect is also fundamental to Tàpies' work. Over the years the artist created a significant imaginary in which elements such as crosses are essential, in a sense that goes beyond their link with Christianity, the X, as an allusion to the crossroads, real or vital, or numbers such as 8, the symbol of infinity.
The Olympic Suite is made up of 50 lithographs and serigraphs chosen to represent various contemporary artistic trends. It was published to commemorate the first centenary of modern Olympism. The chosen artists are defined by different movements and pictorial trends.