Antoni Tàpies
Catalan painter who made pictures out of marble dust, sand and varnish, then scratched them.
Antoni Tàpies was born in Barcelona in 1923 into a Catalan family with strong political and cultural commitments, and turned to painting during a long convalescence from tuberculosis. After a surrealist period he arrived in the early 1950s at the matter paintings that define him: thick grounds of marble dust, sand, latex and varnish built up on canvas or board, scored, scratched, torn and marked with crosses, letters and the four bars of the Catalan flag. Under Franco the work carried a political charge that could not be stated openly. He was made a marquess by the Spanish crown and died in 2012.
The surfaces are the whole point and they are physically vulnerable: heavy mixed grounds crack, shed and separate from the support, and losses cannot be made good without inventing material. Original scratches, tears and incisions are the work and are routinely reported as damage. Assemblages incorporating found objects — furniture, cloth, straw — raise the same question. The Fundació Antoni Tàpies in Barcelona and the Comissió Tàpies are the references for authentication, and there is a very large editioned graphic output that trades separately and frequently.
If you own a work by Antoni Tàpies
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