Antoni Tàpies, Recordant, 1999

Antoni Tàpies (Barcelona, 1923–2012) was a Spanish painter, sculptor and art historian. He was one of the most significant exponents of that Catalan artistic movement most sensitive to the general renewal of the so-called international informal taste. He is considered one of the most important Spanish artists of the twentieth century. Tàpies achieved international recognition by the mid-1950s. In the 1960s, he began incorporating new iconographic elements (writing, signs, anthropomorphic elements, footprints and references to the Catalan situation), and new technical methods (new surfaces, use of everyday objects and varnish). Tàpies’ pictorial language has continued to develop ever since, resulting in a creative and productive body of work that is admired throughout the world.

He has exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; the Institute of Contemporary Art and the Serpentine and Hayward Galleries, London; the Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin; the Kunstahaus, Zurich: the Musée d’Art moderne de la Ville de Paris, the Jeu de Paume and the Centre Pompidou, Paris; the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid; the Institut Valencià d’Art Modern, Valencia; and the Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona, among many other prestigious institutions. The Catalan artist’s work has a study and conservation center at the Fundació Antoni Tàpies in Barcelona.

Antoni Tapies