211 - ANTONI TÀPIES PUIG (Barcelona, 1923–2012).

ANTONI TÀPIES PUIG (Barcelona, 1923–2012). Untitled, from the series “Als Mestres de Catalunya,” 1974. Lithograph, H.C. edition. Signed and numbered by hand. Shows slight staining. Measurements: 100 x 70 cm. Part of the album “Als mestres de Catalunya,” consisting of eight lithographs and one silkscreen print, including the cover, published by Sala Gaspar in Barcelona and printed by Damià Caus (Barcelona, lithographs) and Alexandre Tornabell (Girona, silkscreen). On Guarro paper with the publisher’s watermark, and coated Kraft paper for the silkscreen on the album’s outer cover. The album also contains, printed separately, two poems by Joan Brossa. Tàpies began his artistic career during a long convalescence from a lung disease. He gradually devoted himself more intensely to drawing and painting, and eventually abandoned his law studies to devote himself entirely to art. A co-founder of “Dau al Set” in 1948, he began exhibiting at the October Salons in Barcelona, as well as at the Salón de los Once held in Madrid in 1949. After holding his first solo exhibition at the Galerías Layetanas, he traveled to Paris in 1950 on a scholarship from the Institut Français. Following his 1953 solo exhibition at Martha Jackson’s New York gallery, his international reputation was firmly established. He has received awards such as the Prince of Asturias Award, the Praemium Imperiale from the Japan Art Association, the National Culture Award, the Grand Prize for Painting in France, among others, and retrospective exhibitions have been dedicated to him in Tokyo, New York, Rome, Amsterdam, Madrid, Venice, Milan, Vienna, and Brussels. His work is represented in major museums around the world, including the foundation that bears his name in Barcelona, the Reina Sofía in Madrid, the Guggenheim museums in Berlin, Bilbao, and New York, the Fukuoka Art Museum in Japan, MoMA in New York, and the Tate Gallery in London.