Antoni Tàpies

ANTONI TÀPIES (Barcelona, 1923–2012).
“Variations on a Rectangle 4,” 2001.
Print on paper. Number 38/40.
Signed and numbered in pencil.
Measurements: 9.5 x 20 cm (image); 32 x 37 cm (paper).
This work is part of the print series *Variations on a Rectangle*, created by Antoni Tàpies in 2001. The series brings together different interpretations of a rectangular structure, from which the artist combines geometric forms, signs, and material gestures, exploring the expressive possibilities of abstraction and matter.
In this work, the rectangle serves as a structural element and a support for gestural intervention, over which strokes, marks, and signs are superimposed, altering its appearance and balance. This tension between geometric structure and spontaneous gesture is linked to one of the constants in Tàpies’s artistic language: the relationship between sign, material, and pictorial space.
Tàpies took up drawing and painting at a very young age, and during the 1940s he came into contact with the European avant-garde and contemporary thought. In 1948, he was one of the founders of the Dau al Set group. Throughout his career, he held exhibitions around the world, in prominent galleries and museums such as the Guggenheim in New York and the Museum of Modern Art in Paris. His awards include the Prince of Asturias Award, the Praemium Imperiale from the Japan Art Association, the National Culture Award, the Grand Prize for Painting in France, and others, and retrospective exhibitions have been dedicated to him in Tokyo, New York, Rome, Amsterdam, Madrid, Venice, Milan, Vienna, and Brussels. His works are represented in major national and international museums, including the foundation that bears his name in Barcelona, the Reina Sofía in Madrid, the Guggenheims in Berlin, Bilbao, and New York, the Fukuoka Art Museum in Japan, MoMA in New York, and the Tate Gallery in London.