Catalan painter Antoni Tapies dies at 88 years old.

France Presse - Spanish painter, sculptor and essayist, Antoni Tàpies i Puig, has died at the age of 88, this, Monday, afternoon in Barcelona .
Considered as one of the grand exponents of informality worldwide, he was born in Barcelona in 1923.

His parents were bourgeois, educated and Catalan politicians, and had themselves been involved in the traditions of books and publishing, and this gave him an early love for books and reading.

Self-taught, he became of the most maestros of vanguard art in the 20th century, and developed his own Antoni Tàpies Foundation which opened in 1990 in Barcelona. He combined his love for art with his studies as a lawyer at Barcelona university, and in 1948 founded the magazine and movement known as ‘Dau al Set’ which worked in surrealism and Dadaism, and indeed his first works were surreal.

There was a marked spiritual element to his work, where the art transcended it’s physical state to demonstrate a deep analysis of the human condition.

In 1960 he took part in the ‘New Spanish Painting and Sculpture’ show at the MOMA in New York and that was followed by exhibitions in practically all the large cities on the planet.

His work in the 1970’s became more political, pro Catalan and anti-Franco, and was also influenced by pop-art.