Antoni Tapies (Barcellona 1923-2012)

His early works were influenced by Max Ernst, Paul Klee, Joan Miró, and Eastern philosophies. He soon developed his own style within the Informal; in fact, in 1948 he was one of the first to join the Dau al Set movement, founded in Barcelona by poet Joan Brossa. His early informal works present material outcomes, as he uses stones, earth, debris, ropes and other solid materials to make them. He exhibited for the first time in 1948 at the Salo d'Octubre in Barcelona. In 1950, thanks to a scholarship from the French Institute, he stayed for a year in Paris, where he met Pablo Picasso. He participated in the Venice Biennale in 1952, where he exhibited several times over the years and was awarded the UNESCO Prize in 1958. The late 1950s and 1960s saw a series of exhibitions by the artist in major museums and galleries. The Musée National d'Art Moderne in Paris devoted a retrospective to him in 1973, and the Albright-Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo, New York, in 1977. In the 1980s, Tapies began to use new media and made his first ceramic sculptures and set designs. In 1984 he began work on the design of the Fundació Antoni Tàpies in Barcelona, which opened in 1990.