Antoni Tàpies is celebrated as one of Spain’s greatest contemporary artists, and as one of the most successful European artists of his generation.
Born into a family of Catalan nationalists, Tàpies was exposed to politically engaged from a young age. He discovered contemporary art on his own terms through printed reproductions in the publication D’ací i d’alla, and while convalescing due to a lung condition he spent his days pursuing art, music and philosophical ideas. In 1944 he commenced legal studies but continued to pursue art in his free time. He remained largely self-taught, and three years later decided to commit to his creative endeavours in earnest.
In 1948 Tàpies was involved in the founding of the avant-garde art collective Dau al Set. The name refers to the seventh face of the dice, hinting at the group’s Dadaist and Surrealist affiliations. Dau al Set was conceived as a reaction to the conservative political climate in Spain, and their ambition was to re-invigorate an artistic counter-culture. In the late 1940s Tàpies’ art reflected this preoccupation with Surrealism, imbued as it was with a sense of the mystical, the dream-like and the uncertain.
He was particularly concerned with mysticism and a sense of moving from magic and mystery towards the possibilities of inner exploration. As a result, this period has been termed his ‘magic period.’ As celebrated Catalan writer Pere Gimferrer points out, this phase in Tàpies’ work can also be characterised by a preoccupation with scenography, with a strong sense of the picture plane structured visually like a stage set, and perspective gleefully challenged.
1950 marked a key moment in Tàpies’ rapidly accelerating career. He held his first solo exhibition in Barcelona, and received a grant from the French government which allowed him to live for a few months in Paris. This experience proved to be something of a turning point, and by 1953 he had abandoned surrealist figuration and abstraction and moved towards the themes and techniques that were to define his mature approach: heavily built-up surfaces incised and scratched with letters, number, signs and symbols. Following this, his career and reputation went from strength to strength. Tàpies’ work was shown and acquired by major international museums, and he received the prestigious Velázquez prize, as well as being made 1st Marquess of Tàpies.
Throughout this illustrious and productive career, Tàpies maintained that he approached art as a mechanism which facilitated a shift in the spectator’s way of looking, bringing them closer to a state of contemplation of reality at its deepest level. He stated that ‘the artist is like the mystic: each one acts in his own way but their common purpose is to achieve the inner illumination that enables them to perceive the depths of reality.’
