Antoni Tàpies

Rodolphe Stadler, Paris

Private collection, Zollikon

Private collection, Switzerland

Kunsthalle Bern, 4 Maler: Tàpies, Alechinsky, Messagier, Moser, 26 September - 25 October 1959, no. 0685

Kunsthaus Zurich, Antonio Tàpies, June 1962, no. 13, illustrated in the catalogue

Kestner-Gesellschaft Hannover, Antonio Tàpies, 14 February - 1 April 1962, no. 13

Michel Tapié, Antoni Tàpies, Milan, 1969, pl. 61 (ill. in b/w)

Anna Agustí, Tàpies, Catalogue raisonné, vol. 1, 1943 - 1960, Fundació Antoni Tàpies, Éditions Cercle d'Art, Barcelona, no. 518, p. 252 (ill. in b/w)

With no formal artistic training , Antoni Tàpies began his career following an accident that prevented him from becoming a lawyer. He holds a very important position among Post-War artists, many of whom he admired and emulated. Inspired by the great artistic figures of his time, such as Kandinsky, Miró and Picasso, Tàpies quickly developed his own personal approach to Surrealism and Abstraction when studying in Paris, ultimately leading to one of his first major exhibitions in Barcelona in 1950. Tàpies was not satisfied with a classic paint layer, instead, the surface of his paintings was covered with minerals, sand or concrete, inviting the spectator to contemplate and dive deeper into the depths of his mystical compositions.

This early work was executed in 1955 and already demonstrates the artist's strong stylistic maturity and a materialism referring to Tàpies's ideology inspired by philosophy and religion. The beauty of the sand relief delicately follows the modulation of the canvas and is animated with thickly stratified signs, epitomizing Tàpies's material abstraction. Created to be contemplated at eye level, the relief reveals an almost unlimited range of potential metaphors while retaining the mystery of what lies underneath. Typical of Tàpies, scratches and modulated surfaces are dissimulating hidden and ambiguous symbols encouraging an introspected understanding of his oeuvre. This impressive and fresh-to-the market work forms part of a distinguished collection built with the help of privileged and personal connections with the European Modern Masters and the Swiss art scene, and has been curated carefully through time by the present owner.