Antoni Clavé

ANTONI CLAVÉ I SANMARTÍ (Barcelona, 1913 - Saint-Tropez, France, 2005)
"Hommage à Greco.
Pencil on paper.
Preparatory drawing for the 1965 edition.
Signed.
Measurements: 65 × 50 cm; 72 × 62 cm (frame).

The present drawing, conceived as a preparatory study for the series "Hommage al Greco" (1965), reveals in a direct way the creative process of Antoni Clavé. The composition, with a loose and spontaneous stroke, articulates a central figure of an almost totemic character, enclosed in an architectural structure that anticipates his formal investigations of maturity. The simplification of the face, the frontality and expressive intensity connect with that symbolic and hieratic universe that Clavé would develop extensively in his graphic and pictorial works of the sixties.

This series, produced in a limited edition, is part of a group of works in which the artist pays tribute to great masters of art history, including El Greco, Goya and Rembrandt. In the case of El Greco, the reference is not mimetic, but conceptual: Clavé appropriates his spirituality, his internal tension and his capacity for expressive deformation to reinterpret them from a contemporary language.

Clavé's 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 Museo de Bellas Artes in Bilbao or the Museo Reina Sofía, is today considered fundamental in the renewal of Spanish art in the 20th century.