Antoni Clavé

ANTONI CLAVÉ I SANMARTÍ (Barcelona, 1913 - Saint Tropez, France, 2005).
Untitled. 1989.
Mixed media and collage on paper.
Signed and dated on front and back.
With certificate issued by the Clavé Archives.
Measurements: 37,5 x 28 cm. 59 x 51 cm (frame).

This work is inscribed in the stage of full maturity of Antoni Clavé, when the artist explores with radical freedom the limits between painting, collage and graphics.

The composition articulates a superposition of printed images intervened with large black glazes that descend in the form of drips, creating a dramatic tension between concealment and revelation. The contrast between the reticulated structure and the gestural violence generates a dialogue between order and accident, one of the fundamental axes of his late production. The collage reinforces its almost archaeological dimension.

Antoni Clavé developed a career deeply marked by his experience in the Civil War and his subsequent exile to France. In Paris he came into contact with Vuillard, Bonnard and, especially, Picasso, whose influence was decisive in his evolution towards a personal language that fuses collage, matter and symbolism. Awarded prizes at the New York Hallmark (1948), the Venice Biennial (1954) and the Tokyo International Biennial (1957), he consolidated his international prestige before his recognition in Spain, which began with his exhibition at the Sala Gaspar in 1956.

His work, present in institutions such as the Tate Gallery, the Musée d'Art Moderne de Paris, the British Museum, the Museum of Modern Art in Tokyo, the Museum of Fine Arts in Bilbao or the Reina Sofia Museum, is today considered fundamental in the renewal of Spanish art of the twentieth century.