Antoni Clavé

ANTONI CLAVÉ (Barcelona, 1913 - Saint-Tropez, France, 2005).
"Still life", 1953.
Oil on canvas.
Signed in the lower right corner.
With certificate of Archives Antoni Clavé.
Measurements: 65 x 92 cm; 87 x 114 cm (frame).

Work made in 1953, in a particularly significant moment in the career of Antoni Clavé, when the artist, already installed in Paris, progressively leaves behind the more descriptive figuration to enter into a language of greater material, symbolic and constructive density. Under the title "Still Life", Clavé transforms the traditional genre of still life into a composition of great plastic intensity, where objects are not presented as immediately recognizable elements, but as signs, fragments and presences that emerge from a dark and vibrant background.

The work stands out for its powerful internal organization. On a base dominated by blacks, earths and ochers, fiery reds, blues and whites burst forth, structuring the composition and directing the eye towards the central core. The vegetal forms, the containers and the suspended elements seem to float in an ambiguous space, between the table, the stage and the wall, reinforcing a more poetic than purely descriptive reading of the still life.

In this piece we can see the mark of Clavé the stage designer and the artist attentive to the expressive power of matter. The composition has something of a silent theater: the objects are arranged like actors on a stage, illuminated by chromatic hallmarks and by a dense, free and textured brushstroke. The still life thus ceases to be a domestic representation to become a visual construction of great strength, close to the material informalism that would mark much of his later production.

Antoni Clavé was one of the fundamental figures of Catalan art in the second half of the 20th century. Trained in Barcelona and settled in Paris after the Civil War, he developed an extensive career as a painter, engraver, sculptor and set designer. His work evolved from an expressive figuration towards languages close to informalism and material abstraction. He is represented in institutions such as the Reina Sofia Museum in Madrid, the MNAC, the MACBA, the British Museum and the Centre Pompidou in Paris.