Antoni Tàpies

ANTONI TÀPIES (Barcelona, 1923–2012).
“Variació 1 (G. 1271),” 1990.
Etching, aquatint, and carborundum in color. Edition 75/75.
Work referenced in Núria Homs, *Tàpies Obra Gráfica / Graphic Work*, Vol. IV: 1987–1994, Barcelona, Gustavo Gili, 2009, no. 1271.
Signed and numbered by hand.
Measurements:
*Variació I*, created in 1990, belongs to a series of three prints—*Variació I*, *Variació II*, and *Variació III*—in which Antoni Tàpies explores different possibilities based on the same graphic vocabulary. The very concept of “variation” is significant: it is not a matter of repeating an image, but rather of exploring how a small set of signs, forms, and textures can take on different relationships within the surface.The work reflects one of the essential characteristics of Tàpies’s language: the transformation of the surface into a space of marks and inscriptions.
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, at 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 Guggenheims in Berlin, Bilbao, and New York, the Fukuoka Art Museum in Japan, MoMA in New York, and the Tate Gallery in London.