Antoni Tàpies

ANTONI TÀPIES (Barcelona, 1923–2012).
“Memòria,” 2004.
Etching and lithograph with collage. Copy 36/40.
Work referenced in Nuria Horns, *Tàpies Obra Gráfica / Graphic Work*, Vol. V: 1995–2011, Barcelona, Gustavo Gili, 2014, no. 1617.
Signed and inscribed by hand.
Measurements: 30 x 35 cm (print); 45 x 49 cm (paper).
The title itself, *Memòria*, places the work in a realm where the image does not seek to represent a specific memory, but rather to evoke the material’s capacity to preserve traces and signs of the past. As is the case with much of his work, the signs and forms present in the composition function less as conventional writing than as traces open to interpretation. Tàpies thus transforms the graphic surface into a kind of space of memory: a place where signs, stains, and material fragments seem to record a past experience.In this context, collage takes on special importance, as it connects to a recurring theme in Tàpies’s work: the use of humble, everyday materials not merely as representations, but as elements endowed with a presence of their own. The Antoni Tàpies Foundation has specifically highlighted how the artist incorporated everyday objects and materials into his work, treating them as actual physical entities rather than merely as depicted motifs.
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, among 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, such as 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.