Antoni Tàpies
1923-2012
The Spaniard Antoni Tàpies was the founder of Art Informel and one of the most important contemporary artists.
For him, the painting was a magical process, almost a meditation in which he approached the representational through signs and traces. His most important and most used colour was black, through which light was experienced anew. Tàpies worked with thick applications of paint and graphic structures carved into the paint, which gave his pictures the character of old, mysterious walls. His graphic work is closely related to his drawings.
Almost all museums of modern art dedicated large solo exhibitions to him. This brought him worldwide recognition and numerous awards – e. g. he received the Gold Medal of Fine Arts from King Juan Carlos. In Barcelona, there is a museum dedicated specifically to Tàpies.
Alongside other masters of material design, e. g. Burri (BURRI), Fautrier, Wagemaker, Tàpies occupies a place of his own, which was in keeping with his Spanish national style.
It is not the richness of his colours but their sparseness that evokes the experience shaping his paintings. His art is therefore not exuberant and sonorous. But in strict, almost sombre meditation he extracts from his material the content of painterly experience.
