ANTONI TÀPIES PUIG (Barcelona, 1923 - 2012).

ANTONI TÀPIES PUIG (Barcelona, 1923 - 2012). "Poesia rasa. Poemes de seny i cabell". Drawing made for the cover of Joan Brossa's book "Rua de lletres". Graphite pencil, ink and red pencil on paper. Enclosed with the book. Size: 32 x 23 cm; 53 x 47 cm (frame). "Poesía rasa" is the first of a series of three volumes of collected poems by Joan Brossa, published in 1970 and prefaced by the philosopher Manuel Sacristán. Until then, Brossa had been a poet of little renown. "Poesía rasa" contains a very representative sample, both in terms of thematic registers and formal techniques, of Brossa's poetic work. The cover of the book contained an original work by Antoni Tàpies. With regard to the aesthetics of the work in question, this painting brings together Antoni Tàpies' interest in the symbolism of the cross as the limit of human knowledge in the face of the spiritual world and the superimposition of the element of red on black to refer to the sap of life and the course of time. The polarity and contrast between elements that the artist linked to fertility and the earth (red, femininity) and his tragic sense of existence (the awareness of finitude and the mystical breath) are suggested through the symbol of the cross, on which the initial of his name is also superimposed. Antoni Tàpies was initiated into art during his long convalescence from a lung disease. He progressively devoted himself more intensely to drawing and painting, and finally gave up his law studies to devote himself entirely to art. Co-founder of "Dau al Set" in 1948, he began to exhibit at the Salones de Octubre in Barcelona, as well as at the Salón de los Once held in Madrid in 1949. After his first solo exhibition at the Galerías Layetanas, he travelled to Paris in 1950, with a grant from the Institut Français. In those years he began to take part in the Venice Biennale, exhibited again at the Layetanas and, after a show in Chicago, in 1953 he had a solo exhibition at Martha Jackson's gallery in New York. From then on he exhibited his work, both in group and solo shows, all over the world, in leading galleries and museums such as the Guggenheim in New York and the Musée d'Art Moderne in Paris. He has been awarded prizes such as the Prince of Asturias, the Praemium Imperiale of the Japan Art Association, the National Culture Prize, the French Grand Prix for Painting, etc., and anthologies have been dedicated to him in Tokyo (1976), New York (1977 and 2005), Rome (1980), Amsterdam (1980), Madrid (1980), Venice (1982), Milan (1985), Vienna (1986) and Brussels (1986). He is represented in major museums around the world, such as the foundation that bears his name in Barcelona, the Reina Sofía in Madrid, the Guggenheim in Berlin, Bilbao and New York, the Fukoka Art Museum in Japan, the MoMA in New York and the Tate Gallery in London.