Antoni Tàpies

ANTONI TÀPIES PUIG (Barcelona, 1923–2012).
“Hieroglyph,” 1981.
Unfired clay.
Signed.
Measurements: 15.5 x 13.5 x 2.5 cm.

Antoni Tàpies’s “Hieroglyph” is a sculptural work of a material and symbolic nature made of unfired clay (raw terracotta), a material of particular significance within his artistic language due to its connection to the earth, fragility, and the passage of time. The work features a rough, primitive-looking surface adorned with incisions, signs, and marks that evoke an ancient script or an enigmatic language—hence its title. Rather than conveying a legible message, these symbols function as poetic and meditative elements that invite reflection on memory, matter, and the human condition—recurring themes in Tàpies’s work.

The piece stands out within Antoni Tàpies’ body of work for departing from the media and formats most typical of his career, which focused primarily on painting and works on paper.

Antoni Tàpies began his artistic career during a long convalescence from a lung illness. He gradually devoted himself more intensely to drawing and painting, and eventually abandoned his law studies to devote himself entirely to art. A co-founder of “Dau al Set” in 1948, he began exhibiting at the October Salons in Barcelona, as well as at the Salón de los Once held in Madrid in 1949. After holding his first solo exhibition at the Galerías Layetanas, he traveled to Paris in 1950 on a scholarship from the Institut Français. During these years, he began participating in the Venice Biennale, exhibited again at the Layetanas, and, following an exhibition in Chicago, held a solo show in 1953 at Martha Jackson’s New York gallery. Since then, he has held numerous exhibitions—both group and solo—around the world, at prominent galleries and museums such as the Guggenheim in New York and the Museum of Modern Art in Paris. He has received awards such as the Prince of Asturias Award, the Praemium Imperiale from the Japan Art Association, the National Culture Award, the Grand Prize for Painting in France, among others, and retrospective exhibitions have been dedicated to him in Tokyo (1976), New York (1977 and 2005), Rome (1980), Amsterdam (1980), Madrid (1980), Venice (1982), Milan (1985), Vienna (1986), and Brussels (1986). His works are represented in major museums around the world, including the foundation that bears his name in Barcelona, the Reina Sofía in Madrid, the Guggenheim museums in Berlin, Bilbao, and New York, the Fukuoka Art Museum in Japan, MoMA in New York, and the Tate Gallery in London.