Joan Claret

JOAN CLARET (Barcelona, 1929–2014).
Untitled, 1963.
Ink on paper.
Signed and dated in the lower right corner.

Dated 1963—a particularly significant year in the consolidation of Joan Claret’s abstract language—the work coincides with his participation in *0 Figura: Grafismes*, an exhibition held that same year at Sala Gaspar alongside Joan Josep Tharrats and Joan Vilacasas. In the early 1960s, Claret had taken his painting and drawing toward an intense refinement, transforming line, rhythm, and negative space into autonomous elements of the composition.

Here, extremely fine quadrilaterals overlap and shift, forming two clusters of varying density, connected by larger-scale structures. The expansive white of the paper acts as an essential part of the work and accentuates the sensation of weightlessness and movement in forms that seem to expand into space. The extreme economy of means highlights Claret’s analytical nature and his search for balance through geometry, repetition, and variation.

Joan Claret was one of the most prominent representatives of postwar Catalan constructivist abstraction. Associated with Sala Gaspar and the 0 Figura group, he developed a rigorous body of work based on structure, rhythm, and spatial organization, which was exhibited both in Spain and abroad. His career has been reviewed by the Fundació Vila Casas, which holds works by him, and drawings by Claret are also part of the collection of the Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya.