Antoni Clavé

ANTONI CLAVÉ I SANMARTÍ (Barcelona, 1913 - Saint Tropez, France, 2005).
"Carmen".
Lithograph.
With signature and inscription on the back.
Measurements: 24 x 19 cm; 35 x 28,5 cm (frame).

It was in 1949 when Antoni Clavé took the reins of the scenography of "Carmen", a ballet in five acts created by the choreographer Roland Petit for the Ballets de Paris according to the homonymous opera by Bizet. For the creation of such dazzling sets, Clavé made a series of studies that immortalized with great mastery the staging that accompanied each act of the show. "Carmen" was a great success at its London premiere and at its subsequent presentation in Paris, at the Théâtre Marigny. Zizi Jeanmaire, who played Carmen herself, was acclaimed as a dancer and as an actress for her passionate interpretation and impeccable technique. From the 1950s onwards, Clavé continued his intense work in the world of ballet and theater, using mannequins and achieving fame in the world of international scenography.

Antoni Clavé is one of the most relevant figures of Spanish contemporary art. Trained at the Escuela de Bellas Artes de San Jordi in Barcelona, Clavé was initially dedicated to advertising graphics, illustration and decorative arts. In 1936 he took an active part in the Civil War, in the Republican ranks, which led him to go into exile in France at the end of the war. That same year, 1939, he exhibits the drawings he made on the battlefields. He settled in Paris, where he met Vuillard, Bonnard and Picasso. He already enjoyed great international prestige at the time when he began to be recognized in Spain, after his exhibition at the Gaspar Gallery in Barcelona in 1956. At the same time, he made illustrations for the work "Gargantua and Pantagruel", which led him to become familiar with medieval iconography. In this same decade of the fifties is when he began his intense work in the world of ballet and theater, achieving great fame in the world of international scenography. In 1952 he made the sets for the film "Hans Christian Andersen", by Charles Vidor, and was nominated for an Oscar award. In 1954, he abandoned set design to devote himself to painting. He received awards at the Hallimark in New York in 1948, at the Venice Biennial in 1954 and at the International Biennial in Tokyo in 1957. In 1984 the Spanish State recognized his artistic value with the exhibition of more than one hundred of his works in the Spanish pavilion at the Venice Biennale. That same year he was awarded the Gold Medal of the Generalitat de Catalunya. Clavé's work can be found, among many others, in the Fine Arts Museum in Bilbao, the Tate Gallery, the Museum of Modern Art in Paris, the British Museum in London, the Museum of Modern Art in Tokyo and the Reina Sofía Museum in Madrid.