Tàpies, Antoni

Tàpies, Antoni (1923- ), Spanish abstract painter, born in Barcelona and largely self-taught.

As Tàpies grew up he was greatly affected by the division, conflict, and hardship of the Spanish Civil War. He enrolled at Barcelona University in 1943 to study law, with the intention of entering the legal profession as his father had done, but in 1946 he aborted these studies to devote his time to art. His early works were influenced by Joan Miró and Antoni Gaudí. In the 1950s he gave up pure oil painting and adopted the new medium of oil or latex paint mixed with sand or grit. This he spread over the canvas and then either incised it with hieroglyphic-like markings or moulded it into cloth-like textures; thin crude washes of pale colour added a faded or weather-beaten effect, heightening the sense of pain that Tàpies strove to express. Materials not traditionally associated with painting, such as newspaper, string, and rice, were sometimes included and later, from around 1970, larger objects such as bits of furniture.

By the end of the 1950s Tàpies was recognized internationally as being one of the most innovative painters in the Art Informel and Matter Painting movements, which were developing in Europe at the time. In 1958 he represented Spain at the Venice Biennale, where he received two major prizes, and in 1962 the first retrospectives of his work were held, in Hanover and New York. He has also produced etchings and lithographs, as well as sculptures. From the 1960s, a growing interest in Eastern thought and Zen Buddhism was to influence his work, which now included conceptual installations and objects.

In 1992 the artist was commissioned to create a sculpture for the new National Museum of Catalan Art in Barcelona; the work, a gigantic sock with a hole in it, proved highly controversial.