Born in Barcelona, 13 December 1923, Antoni Tàpies i Puig, 1st Marquess of Tàpies, was son of lawyer Josep Tàpies i Mestre, and María Puig i Guerra, Antoni Tàpies studied law during 3 years, but from 1943 onwards he starts devoting himself to painting.
In 1948, Tàpies helps co-found the first Post-War Movement in Spain known as Dau al Set, headed by its founder the poet Joan Brossa and connected to the Surrealist and Dadaist Movements.
Tàpies held his first solo exhibition in 1950, at Galeries Laietanes (Barcelona) and participated in the Carnegie International in Pittsburgh. That same year, the French government awarded Tàpies a scholarship that enabled him to spend a year in Paris.
His work would be ardently promoted in Europe and beyond by the influential French critic and curator Michel Tapié.
Influenced by Paul Klee and Joan Miró, he stated essentialy a self-taught surrealist painter. However he would become an informal artist, working in a style known as pintura matèrica, in which non artistic materials are incorporated into the paintings, also known as matière painting, or Art Informel. His work is associated with both Tachisme and Abstract Expressionism.
On 9 April 2010, Tàpies was raised into the Spanish nobility by King Juan Carlos I with the hereditary title of Marquess of Tàpies.
The Fundació Tàpies, in Barcelona, is a museum dedicated to the life and work of the artist. He is represented by The Pace Gallery in New York.
Antoni Tàpies i Puig passed away today 6 January 2012. He was 88 years old.
These are sad news for the arts in particularly for the Iberian Peninsula, after yesterday's death of the Portuguese artist Fernando Lanhas, also aged 88.
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