Antoni Tāpies, born 1923 in Barcelona, founded in 1948 together with the Catalan poet Joan Brossa and some other artists the group "Dau al set" (cube with seven). By that time, he was influenced by surrealism. In 1954, Tāpies finally found his typical style by finishing his first material paintings, mixing oil with soil, glue and marble powder. These works, also called wall paintings, are painted objects more than usual paintings, defined by compactness and tactility. Concerning the language of the material and the canon of motifs Tāpies kept the style of the wall paintings similar until the early eighties.
The darkness and the silence of his works is corresponding to Tāpies interest in hermetic philosophy and mediaeval mystic. The aura of a painting is most important; it is meant to be an object of meditation. The rejection of color leads towards that kind of darkness, which is the light - in the same way as, in the opinion of mysticism, there is the Absolute, which is the total Void.
Biographie:
1994 Honorary Member Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh, Scotland
1992 Appointed Honorary Academian Royal Academy of Arts, London, UK
1990 Received Praemium Imperiale award Artistic Association of Japan
1985 Elected Member Royal Academy of Fine Arts, Stockholm, Sweden
1983 Appointed Officier des Arts et des Lettres French Government
1981 Honorary Doctorate Royal College of Art, London, UK
1979 Honorary Member Berlin Academy of Arts, Berlin, Germany
1964 Guggenheim International Award Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, NY
1950 Grant from the French Government
1923 Born Barcelona, Spain
