Antoni Tàpies is one of the most important Spanish artists and the most important representative of his country's Art Informel movement. As an autodidact, he initially focused on the works of van Gogh and Picasso, then on the surrealist paintings of Miró, Klee and Ernst. During a scholarship in Paris in 1950, he met Art Informel and Art Brut artists and also studied Far Eastern philosophy. This led him to limit his painterly means of expression to the essentials and to explore material structures. From 1953 onwards, he used a wide variety of materials, which he modeled with paint on the canvas. He also integrated mysterious, religious and magical symbols into his compositions. In addition to these material paintings, he also created prints (mainly lithographs) from 1959 and sculptural objects in the 1970s and 1980s. Tàpies' art has been internationally recognized since the 1960s. He has received numerous prizes and awards and has shown his work in important exhibitions, such as at the Venice Biennale and the documenta in Kassel. The work on display is from 1988.
