Antoni' Tapies Artwork valuations, appraisals and auction estimates

Antoni Tàpies i Puig, Marquis de Tàpies (Barcelona, ​​13 December 1923 – Barcelona, ​​6 February 2012) was a Spanish painter, sculptor and art theorist. He was one of the most significant exponents of that Catalan artistic movement most sensitive to the general renewal of taste called international informality. Read the full biography

Antoni' Tapies Biography

Antoni Tàpies i Puig, Marquis de Tàpies (Barcelona, ​​13 December 1923 – Barcelona, ​​6 February 2012) was a Spanish painter, sculptor and art theorist. He was one of the most significant exponents of that Catalan artistic movement most sensitive to the general renewal of taste called international informality. He is considered one of the most important Spanish artists of the 20th century. The work of the Catalan artist enjoys a study and conservation center at the Fundació Antoni Tàpies in Barcelona. Tàpies was the son of the lawyer Josep Tàpies and Maria Puig, daughter of a family of Catalan politicians. His father's profession and the relationships established by his maternal family with various members of Catalan political life allowed him to develop his childhood in a liberal environment. Tàpies has always observed that the comparison between his father's anticlericalism and his mother's Orthodox Catholicism led him to a personal search for a new spirituality, which he found in eastern philosophies and religions, mainly in Zen Buddhism. After staying in Paris and New York, in 1948 he was among the first to join the Dau al Set movement, as informal art was initially called, founded in Barcelona by the poet Joan Brossa. Since 1955 he has participated in the Taull group with Modesto Cuixart, Juan José Tharrats and José Guinovart. In 1958 he presented a personal exhibition at the Venice Biennale which earned him the UNESCO Prize. In 1973 he exhibited at the Musée d'Art Moderne in Paris and in 1977 at the Albright-Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo. In 1981 Tàpies was awarded the gold medal for Fine Arts by King Juan Carlos I and in 1983 he was awarded the Medalla d'Or de la Generalitat de Catalunya. In London he was awarded an honorary degree by the Royal College of Art. In 1990 the Antoni Tàpies Foundation was inaugurated in Barcelona, ​​where he had already worked with dedication for many years. He passed away in 2012 at the age of 88.