Aurèlia Muñoz Centenary

Aurèlia Muñoz is born on 13 April on Carrer Finlàndia in the Sants neighbourhood of Barcelona, the eldest of three children. She studies at the Institut Montserrat, one of the first schools to adopt the Montessori method of teaching. From an early age, she shows an interest in drawing, geometry and order, as well as construction using paper. She suffers from the shortages and rationing during the Spanish Civil War

She studies business at the Academia Barcino (1940–45), which she combines with training at the Escuela de Comercio (1942–45), though she never works in the commercial world.

In 1944–45, she learns how to make small birds and other animals out of paper during activities run by the Centre Excursionista de Catalunya.

That same year, she writes in her diary – entitled Diario de mi vida (1944–49) – that she believes she has a talent for drawing and is considering taking it up professionally. She begins to attend drawing classes at the Academia Valls. She also makes dolls out of paper. In 1947, she learns to sew and studies French and English.

On 19 May 1948, she marries Josep Ventosa. A year later, her first child, a son, José Carlos, is born. Her health is delicate and she spends a lot of time in bed at home. In a note in her diary, written years later, she admits to loathing repetitive daily chores and how difficult she finds it to work on her art in her traditional family setting.

Her second child, a daughter, Sílvia, is born in 1957.

She suffers from back and stomach pains for which the medical diagnosis indicates enforced rest and immobility. She refuses to accept this and decides to devote herself seriously to her creative side.

In 1959, she enrols at the Escola Massana in Barcelona, where she trains for a year in the techniques of ceramics and glazes. While at the school, she develops an interest in printed fabrics and decides to explore other textile techniques. She works on drawing projects on hessian with a view to turning them into fabric prints. She also applies this technique to her daughter’s clothing and toys and to household textiles such as curtains and tablecloths. She does drawings and paintings in India ink, gouache and watercolour that she later transfers to printed works, assemblages, embroidery pieces and patchworks.

In 1960, this interest prompts her to study traditional textile techniques, civil clothing and liturgical vestments, and medieval and Renaissance iconography. She researches fine and vernacular embroidery from Spain and elsewhere in Europe held in museums and cathedrals and is especially struck by the Tapestry of Creation (eleventh–twelfth centuries) in Girona Cathedral. She is also inspired by the embroideries from the twelfth to the eighteenth centuries that she studies at the former Museu Tèxtil de Barcelona (now the Museu del Disseny – DHub Barcelona). In addition, she studies the historical embroidery known as acu pictae (needle painting). She learns artisanal techniques while simultaneously identifying her influences in contemporary art: Joan Miró, René Magritte, Antoni Gaudí and Paul Klee. She reads mystic poets such as St. John of the Cross and St. Teresa of Ávila. She sees the work of Joaquín Torres-García, among others, for the first time at the Galeries Dalmau.

Her first solo show is held from 20 April to 3 May 1963 at the Galería Belarte in Barcelona – which represents artists such as Santiago Pericot and Albert Ràfols-Casamada – in which she shows Weathercock (1959) as well as painted and printed fabrics, silkscreen prints and collages. The exhibition has an accompanying essay written by the critic, poet and painter Josep Maria de Sucre (1886–1969), an anarchist and former member of the Els Quatre Gats circle.

She works on textiles, embroideries and prints related to episodes from the Gospels, such as The Last Supper (1962) and The Three Kings (1963), shown in exhibitions of contemporary sacred art such as Arte cristiano actual in Barcelona. Her work is included in the Seventh May Salon in the city.

She is awarded the first Prize for Applied Art by the Ministry of Information and Tourism. Her prints and patchworks are included in the Spanish Pavilion at the New York World’s Fair and in a group exhibition held in the autumn at the Musée d’Art moderne de la Ville de Paris. She enters the Sixth International Drawing Competition organised by the Fundació Ynglada-Guillot, held at the Palacio de la Virreina, and is awarded the third Joan Miró Drawing Prize, which is presented at the Cercle Artístic Sant Lluc.

While at La Molina (Girona), she records a number of reflections in her essay entitled ‘Autoexamen’, in which she confesses: ‘The drawing always comes far in advance of the work. Like thought does action […].

The perfect balance would be to closely coordinate action [and] thought.’ Her production of drawings increases considerably. Notable among them are the early iterations of her ‘figures’ in a patchwork piece she entitles Mystic Figures and Cross, as well as her series on Noah’s Ark.

Her work Abstract Construction is selected for the Second Lausanne International Tapestry Biennial, the first time embroidery is admitted at these events. The movement later known as La Nouvelle Tapisserie is consolidated during the biennial. In Lausanne, she meets critics, gallerists and artists who will be key figures in her future career: Erika Billeter and René Berger, directors of the Musée cantonal des Beaux-Arts de Lausanne; Milena Lamarova, curator at the Museum of Decorative Arts in Prague; Mildred Constantine, art critic and curator at the Museum of Modern Art in New York; Jack Lenor Larsen, textile designer; Ryszard Stanislawski, director of Muzeum Sztuki in Łódź; and Wil Bertheux, head of the Department of Applied Arts at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam.

The other Spanish artists at the event include Luis Cienfuegos, Josep Grau-Garriga and Maria Teresa Codina. She becomes friends with the artists Magdalena Abakanowicz, Jagoda Buić, Ritzi and Peter Jacobi, Elsi Giauque and Helen Duffy. From her first international trips onwards, she collects old fabrics, necklaces, feathers, reliquaries, passementerie and handmade paper from different cultures that influence her research. Some objects, like reliquaries and scores, form part of works that she calls ‘collages’, though at times these have a more clearly three-dimensional nature closer to assemblage.

She participates in the Fourth Female Salon of Art Today, in which all the artists are women, held in Barcelona City Council’s Municipal Exhibition Rooms, and in the Sacred Art Salon in Girona – at which she is awarded the Religious Symbolism Prize – and the Twenty-fifth Salon of Sacred Art and Spiritual Realities at the Musée d’Art moderne de Paris.

She completes her works Figures and Moon and Demon.

She participates in various international group exhibitions of sacred art, at which she presents what she later calls ‘protest’ pieces, seeking ‘a kind of mythical religion, in other words, one that is not authentic’. She embarks on a lasting dialogue with a number of art critics in Barcelona and Madrid: Daniel Giralt-Miracle, Vicente Aguilera Cerni, Cesáreo Rodríguez-Aguilera, José Corredor-Matheos, Santiago Amón, José María Moreno Galván and Juan Ramírez de Lucas. She produces some of her key works of this period, such as Fountain of Life, Blue Bird and Cosmic Angel. She participates in the International Congress of Artists and Art Critics in Santander.

She opens a solo show of large embroidery pieces at the Ateneo de Madrid, with an accompanying essay by Rodríguez-Aguilera. She participates, alongside David Partridge, Sax Shaw and Julian Snelling, in a group exhibition entitled 4 One Man Exhibitions [sic] at the Richard Demarco Gallery in Edinburgh, in which she shows Totem, Fountain of Life, Abstract Construction, Demon and Hieratic Figure.

She breaks a leg while practising sport. During her recovery, she experiments with new techniques and learns the four basic knots of macramé from her aunt Josefa Esteve. Her works include assemblages such as Ferdinand the Catholic, Isabella the Catholic and Religious Myth. She shows work in the Sixth Female Salon of Art Today, held in Barcelona City Council’s Municipal Exhibition Rooms.

She creates the costumes for the adaptation of William Makepeace Thackeray’s play The Rose and the Ring, directed by Josep Anton Codina with set design by Jordi Pericot, performed at the Teatre Romea in Barcelona in January the following year.

She continues to create embroidery pieces, among them Deity. She embarks on her macramé period with new sculptures such as Person at Prayer, Macra I and Macra II.

She is awarded the Silver Medal of the City of Paris for her tapestry Blue Bird, shown at the International Salon of Female Art. She is also awarded the Fine Arts Bursary awarded by the Fundación Juan March to pursue a research project entitled ‘Embroidery’. For this project, she travels to France, Switzerland, Britain, Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia, where she attends the International Tapestry Colloquium held at the Chamber of Architects in Prague. In Barcelona, she researches the collections at the Museo Etnológico and the Museo Textil in Barcelona, as well as those of the Museo Provincial Textil in Terrassa.

She designs the costumes for Maria Aurèlia Capmany’s play Dones, flors i pitança, directed by Josep Anton Codina, which premieres at La Cova del Drac in Barcelona.

Macra I is selected for the Fourth Lausanne International Tapestry Biennial.

She documents her works with the help of photographers such as Ángeles Moral, Francesc Català-Roca, Pau Barceló, Josep Gri and Ferran Freixa. She organises an archive of all her works, publications and projects, which she keeps up-to-date for the rest of her career.

She proposes that the First International Congress and Exposición internacional de experiencias artístico-textiles be held at the Museo Español de Arte Contemporáneo in Madrid, in which she shows Homage to Gaudí and Macra Totem and gives a talk on ‘The Integration of Textile Art in Contemporary Society’.

Her work is shown in the exhibition Figurative Painters in Spain Today at the universities in San Diego and Saint Louis in the United States.

The Exposición internacional de experiencias artístico-textiles travels to the Salón del Tinell in Barcelona. Her solo show at the Muzeum Jindřichohradecka in Czechoslovakia includes Abstract Construction, Cosmic Angel, Totem, Macra Bird, Fountain of Life, Hieratic Figure and Deity. Some of these works appear in a subsequent solo show at the Ateneo de Madrid.

Muñoz is also included in the group show Tapisseries. Du XIVè au XXè siècle at the Maison de la Culture de Grenoble and in the Fourth Ibiza International Art Biennial.

She is the guest of honour at the Ninth Female Salon of Art Today at the Palacio de la Virreina, in which she shows Red Macra and Mystic Figure.

She teaches the course ‘The Importance of Authenticity in Creating Spanish Fashion’ at the Escuela de Artes y Técnicas de la Moda in Barcelona.

Three Figures is selected for the Fifth Lausanne International Tapestry Biennial.

She produces Form in Nature, a large-format work made using the technique of knitting. Thanks to the mediation of the Dutch architect Huig Maaskant, she is commissioned to create Homage to Hieronymus Bosch for the new building of the provincial council of North Brabant, situated in ‘s-Hertogenbosch. With this work, she brings her production of embroidery pieces to a close.

She installs a new studio in the building where she lives in Barcelona in order to be able to make large-format works and to cope with her increasing commissions and exhibitions. She keeps to the same working routine for years, spending the morning on administrative and management tasks and the afternoon on creating work. She works with Josefina Salazar, and Maria Jesús Marturet. She works with Josefina without interruption from 1959 to 2011 and with Maria Jesús between 1970 and 1981. Aurèlia’s son, José Carlos Ventosa, moves into the studio to draw.

She participates in the Fifth Lausanne International Tapestry Biennial, which travels to Warsaw, and in the group exhibition Deliberate Entanglements at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, which subsequently travels to the University of California Art Galleries in Los Angeles; the Utah Museum of Fine Arts in Salt Lake City; the Portland Art Museum; the Vancouver Art Gallery; and the California Palace of the Legion of Honor in San Francisco.

She makes the works Ritual Cape, Bird with Long Tail and Afghan Macra.

She has a solo show at the Galerie Änni von Mühlenen in Bern. In addition, she participates in the group shows Fiber Structures, at the Denver Art Museum; Exposició Nacional d’Escultura Contemporània, at Girona Cathedral; and in the International Contemporary Art Market in Düsseldorf.

She produces a maquette for Plant Macra. The work Plant Macra is selected for the Sixth Lausanne International Tapestry Biennial, which travels under the title 6th International Biennial of Tapestry, to various museums in the United States: the University of Texas at Austin; Cleveland Museum of Art; Herbert F. Johnson Museum at Cornell University; and the Columbus Gallery of Fine Arts. It is included in the group exhibition Adquisiciones recientes at the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo in Seville and in the Miró 80 tribute exhibition at the Colegio de Arquitectos in Palma de Mallorca. She presents a solo show at the Galerie Nouvelles Images in The Hague.

While exploring the technique of macramé, she develops an interest in the marine ecosystem and in traditional tools used in fishing. She learns the technique used by the women who make fishing nets in Blanes, whom she visits on several occasions. She uses this method in works such as Plant Nets and Figure in the Forest (1974), both made using fishing net, wrapping and macramé.

She attends the Twelfth São Paulo Biennial as one of the artists representing Spain and shows Bird Woman, Plant Nets and Ring Cascade there. After the opening, she visits Rio de Janeiro, where the city’s botanical gardens make a profound impression on her, and Salvador, the capital of the state of Bahia, where she attends popular ceremonies associated with Candomblé culture.

She is a founding member of the AAFAD (Association of Craft Activities of the Federation of Associations for Fostering Arts and Design), where she shares ideas and projects with Lisa Rehsteiner, Ana Roquero, Bignia Kuoni, Maria Asssumpció Raventós, Susana Rolando and Maria Antònia Pelauzy. This association, based in Barcelona, represents Spain on the World Crafts Council (WCC-AISBL). Muñoz will attend the international assemblies held in the coming years: Toronto (Canada) in 1974, Oaxtepec (Mexico) in 1976 and Vienna (Austria) in 1982, which provide her with an opportunity to discover the works of international artisans and artists and to share knowledge with them.

She works on the maquette for Anchored Kite and on pieces such as Magical Clothing, which enable her to develop her macramé technique. Her daughter, Sílvia, begins to work in the administrative management of the studio and on making textile pieces and macramé miniatures by hand, which she continues to do until 1984.

She completes Anchored Kite, Textile in Tension and Undulations and she makes Organic Sphere. Anchored Kite is presented outdoors in the I Exposición de escultura al aire libre at the Nuevo Club de Golf in Madrid.

She travels to Egypt with her family. She participates in the First International Exhibition of Miniature Textiles, organised by the British Crafts Centre in London, which tours Europe and the United States. Other group exhibitions in which she shows work include Mujeres ante el arte, at the Galería Iolas-Velasco in Madrid; the Exposición de Actividades Artesanas, mounted by the AAFAD in Barcelona; and Relief in Fibre. Contemporary Tapestries at the Jacques Baruch Gallery in Chicago. She also presents her work in a solo show at the Galería Adrià in Barcelona.

She attends the World Crafts Council convention in Toronto, entitled ‘In Praise of Hands. Contemporary Crafts of the World’. At the event, Muñoz meets Esperanza Rodríguez – a Galician textile artist who inserts feathers into her works – and the two strike up a creative dialogue.

She works with architects such as Daniel Gelabert, Josep Maria Botey and Lluís Cantallops on the making and installation of large-format works, as well as on the design of her exhibitions.

She makes works with references to clothing such as Cope and Medieval Apparel, while at the same time including biomorphic references in other pieces.

She has a solo show at the Casa de Cultura de Girona.

Her work can also be seen in international group shows, such as Miniature Textiles at the Hadler Galleries and the Art Weave Gallery, both in New York; another at the Museum Bellerive in Zurich, and the first edition of the International Triennial of Tapestry, at the Central Museum of Textiles in the Polish city of Łódź. The Exposición colectiva de tapiz español contemporáneo y experiencias textiles is also held this year at the Museo Provincial Textil in Terrassa.

She sets up a dye laboratory in her studio to make colours for her macramé works. She starts her Beings series with Historical Being and produces a number of the major pieces in the series – Natural Being, Social Being and Communal Being – as well as Undulations and maquette works on a smaller scale: Tension of One Element I and Tension of Three Elements.

She travels to Mexico to attend the World Crafts Council. There she meets craftswomen and shares knowledge of basketry and weaving with them and presents her ideas in her talk on the influence of popular Mexican art in the contemporary tapestry, which remains unpublished.

She wins the Best of Jute Prize for Cope at the Fiber Structures exhibition, in which she also shows Cathedral, at the Heinz Gallery of the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh. Her work is shown in international exhibitions such as Focus on Fiber. An International Tapestry Exhibition at the Jacques Baruch Gallery in Chicago; the First International Biennial of Miniature Textile Art at the Savaria Múzeum in Szombathely (Hungary); and Fiber Works. Europe and Japan, presented at the museums of modern art in Kyoto and Tokyo, in which her Figure in the Forest is included.

She participates in the Second International Exhibition of Miniature Textiles, organised by the British Crafts Centre in London, in which she shows 2 Modules and Mobile.

Following the democratic legalisation of her mother tongue, she begins to give her works titles in Catalan.

She produces Brown Eagle, Mystic Being and Infinity. Her Beings series is presented in its entirety at the Galería Kreisler Dos in Madrid, together with a selection of miniature macramé pieces. She prepares a similar collection of works for her solo show at the Hadler Galleries in New York.

Undulations is selected for the Eighth Lausanne International Tapestry Biennial, which travels to the Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian in Lisbon. She also participates in the group show Fiberworks, the touring version of the Fiber Works: Europe and Fiber Works: Japan exhibitions, presented in Japan the previous year. Her pieces Rain Cape II and Mica Cascade are included in this exhibition. She is also one of the Five European Artists shown at the Hadler Galleries in New York. The Second International Exhibition of Miniature Textiles travels to the TextielMuseum in Tilburg (the Netherlands), the Musée des arts décoratifs de la Ville de Lausanne and various museums in Australia.

She organises the Exposició antològica del macramé at the former Hospital de la Santa Creu in Barcelona and at the Museo de Granollers in collaboration with Lliberata Mas, an educationalist, artist and the author of the manual El macramé a l’escola (1981). In addition to her own works Magic Mantle, Open Shell, Closed Shell and Kite in Closed Space, the exhibition includes works by other contemporary women artists such as Dolors Oromí, Cecília Pino and Lluïsa Ramos, as well as Lliberata Mas herself, along with textile objects from various material cultures, Baroque relics from ancient Mesopotamia.

For family reasons, she moves to Cleveland between January and March, where she meets the teacher and artist Thomas P. Pupkiewicz, a pioneer in the use of paper pulp in sculpture, from whom she learns preparation and dyeing techniques and with whom she works on the production of paper in the coming years.

She makes macramé works, among them Aerial Being, Textile and Mica, Cape with Collar, Interior Space, Return to Infinity, and her Modules series. She also takes up drawing again, producing a considerable number of such works. She shows her artist’s book Comunicació trencada in Materializzazione del linguaggio, the exhibition organised by the poet and sculptor Mirella Bentivoglio in the spaces of the Magazzini del Sale during the 38th Venice Biennale. She writes her essay ‘Permanència del llibre com a objecte de comunicació visual i artística’, which remains unpublished. She participates in the Fifth International Biennial of Miniature Textile Art at the Savaria Múzeum in Szombathely.

She presents her work in solo shows at the University of North Dakota and the University of Kentucky Art Gallery in the United States. Her solo show Aurèlia Muñoz. Tapissos is mounted at the Palau de Caramany in Girona. She participates in group shows such as the Third International Exhibition of Miniature Textiles at the British Crafts Centre in London and at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, and in the Third International Triennial of Tapestry in Łódź.

Her solo show Former af fibre, held at the Kunstindustrimuseet in Copenhagen, includes her installation Sails, exclusive to the exhibition, Brown Eagle, Social Being and Mystic Being. She also participates in Experiències Tèxtils, at the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Ibiza, and in the exhibition held to mark the anniversary of the Galería Kreisler Dos in Madrid.

She begins to work on a series of light sculptures made of canvas that she later entitles Birds-Kites. Her work Mobile of Sails is presented in Noves propostes per nous espais at the Col·legi d’Arquitectes de Barcelona.

She writes a report entitled ‘El tejido como medio de flexionar un espacio’ for the Ministry of Information and Tourism Grant in order to make ‘new contributions to the plastic arts’. She is awarded the Ministry of Culture Prize for the Arts of the Book and Binding at the Exhibition of Avant-garde Crafts at the Drassanes Reials in the Port of Barcelona.

She continues to produce large-format works inspired by nautical sails and Leonardo da Vinci’s experimental designs. She completes macramé pieces, among them Argonaut and Tridacna, miniatures, like her Interior Space series, and works on paper such as Blue Mineral.

She participates in the Fourth International Exhibition of Miniature Textiles at the British Crafts Centre in London, in which she shows Meshes I and II, and in the Third International Biennial of Miniature Textile Art in Szombathely and Un siglo de cultura catalana 1880-1980 at the Palacio de Velázquez in Madrid.

Her solo show Aurelia Muñoz. Tapiz en el espacio, featuring almost her entire Beings series, is presented at the Palacio Iturbide in Mexico City.

She has a solo show, with the same title as her exhibition in Mexico City the previous year, at the Galleria Adelphi in Padua. Another solo show, Tapissos i estructures tèxtils, opens at the Museo Provincial de Terrassa, where her work Anchored Kite is shown in the gardens.

She participates in Filo-logia. Il Luogo delle immagini del segno della scrittura, an exhibition of artist’s books that includes artists such as Maria Lai, Anna Paci and Amelia Etlinger, held at the Galleria ‘Il Luogo’ in Rome, and in Filo, genesi, filogenesi at the Galleria Arte Duchamp in Cagliari (Italy), both curated by Mirella Bentivoglio. She is also involved in another exhibition of artist’s books, Llibres d’artista/Artist’s Books, at the Sala Metrònom in Barcelona.

She participates in Filo-logia. Il Luogo delle immagini del segno della scrittura, an exhibition of artist’s books that includes artists such as Maria Lai, Anna Paci and Amelia Etlinger, held at the Galleria ‘Il Luogo’ in Rome, and in Filo, genesi, filogenesi at the Galleria Arte Duchamp in Cagliari (Italy), both curated by Mirella Bentivoglio. She is also involved in another exhibition of artist’s books, Llibres d’artista/Artist’s Books, at the Sala Metrònom in Barcelona.

She participates in group exhibitions organised by the Colegio de Arquitectos de Tenerife and the Asociación de Profesionales y Empresas Vinculadas al Diseño (FAD) in Barcelona, as well as in the exhibition Catalunya Avui, held at the UNESCO headquarters in Paris. At the Fourth International Triennial of Tapestry in Łódź, she is awarded the bronze medal for Aerial Being.

This is a period marked by stylistic coexistences and juxtapositions during which she completes Red Winged Being and White Quipu Book, and begins various Birds-Kites.

She devotes herself to producing her Birds-Kites, which she also refers to as ‘aérostats’. In this series, she completes B1, B2, B3, C1, C3, C4, C5, D1, D2, S1, S2, S3 and S4, a selection of which feature in a major display in the Palacio de Cristal in Madrid as part of her retrospective exhibition Aurèlia Muñoz, organised by the Ministry of Culture between June and July.

A selection of Birds-Kites occupies the vaulted spaces of the Drassanes Reials in the Port of Barcelona. This exhibition is held at the same time as her solo show at the Galeria Maeght, in which she shows among them her Beings series, as well as her Birds-Kites in the Gothic courtyard.

She is also included in the group exhibition Fil-Sofia, el concepte de fil en la dona-artista, mounted in the Sala Parpalló in Valencia and the Sala Metrònom in Barcelona, and in Libros de artistas, an exhibition in the Salas Ruiz Picasso of the Biblioteca Nacional de España in Madrid. In the Eighth International Biennial of Sport in the Fine Arts, held at the Palacio de Exposiciones in the Parque del Retiro in Madrid, she shows Icarus and Sails. The Third International Exhibition of Miniature Textiles tours Europe and the United States. She begins her Mandalas series.

She shows her Birds-Kites in the atrium of the Palais de Rumine as part of Eleventh Lausanne International Tapestry Biennial, on the theme of Fiber Space. At this event, she entitles them Aérostates. She again presents these works later at the Fundación Rodríguez-Acosta in Granada during the International Music Festival.

She opens a solo show at the Colegio de Arquitectos in Zaragoza and continues to participate in major international textile exhibitions, notably the touring show The Art Fabric: Mainstream, held at the Springfield Museum of Fine Arts in Massachusetts, which travels to the Akron Art Institute in Ohio; the University of Rochester in New York; the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center; and the following year the Greenville Museum of Art in South Carolina. She participates in the group exhibition Mail Art in the Seventh Art Biennale, held in Pontevedra. She begins to concentrate increasingly on producing works using paper, among them Score, Paper Scales, Object Book and Nepal.

She begins her Washi series, which she continues to develop over the rest of the decade. She is awarded the Aranjuez National Prize for Tapestry for Communal Being. She is appointed vice-president of Artifex, Centre Mediterranéen de l’Artisanat Créateur, a UNESCO project set up to establish a centre for documenting, sharing and promoting Mediterranean arts and crafts practices. She participates in the group exhibition Spaanse Kunst, held at the Galerie Nouvelles Images in The Hague. She focuses on the book as the leitmotif of her production of works on paper.

She begins her Seaweed series, which she continues to develop over the rest of the decade.

She presents a solo show at the Centre d’Études Catalanes in Paris. She works on her Aerial Books series, and some of her works on paper are included in the group exhibition Paper i artistes, organised by the Museu Molí Paperer de Capellades in the Barcelona province. Other major group exhibitions include Espace/Création Textile. Tapisserie en Espagne aujourd’hui, held as part of Europalia 85 in Tournai (Belgium). In this exhibition, she shows a large selection of Birds-Kites in the Church of Saint-Nicolas. She participates in Il macramè a Chiavari at the Palazzo Rocca in Chiavari.

Solo shows of her work are organised at the Museu Puig (C.D.A.C.C.) in Perpignan, the Museu de Granollers, the Centre d’Études Catalanes in Paris and the Galería Kreisler Dos in Madrid. She also participates in the Postcriptum Fibrebooks group exhibitions at the Galeria Studio E in Rome; and in Handgeschöpftes, the title of the First International Biennial of Paper Art, organised by the Leopold-Hoesch-Museum in Düren (Germany).

She creates the works White Sea and Sea Butterfly.

In her studio, and with the help of Josefina Salazar, she continues her Seaweed, Mandalas, Books, Origami and Cubist Mobiles series, working on them over the next two decades. Some of these series are included in her solo show at the Galeria Sèrie-Disseny in Barcelona.

She is included in the group show Hand Made Paper Masters Workshop Exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum and Art Center in Miami. The Center for Latin American Arts and Studies, also in Miami, mounts her solo show Aurelia Muñoz: Fiber & Paper, in which examples of her large-format works in macramé (her Beings series and Cape with Collar), Birds-Kites (B1, B2, D1 and D2) and paper sculptures (White Sea, Aerial Book and Washi) are brought together for the first time.

In an interview with Diario las Américas, she states: ‘My work is a kind of sculpture in space that uses textures, but totally unrelated to the concept of tapestry’.

During this period, she produces Hieroglyph, her Cubist Mobiles M#1, M#4, M#5, M#6, M#7, M#9, M#10, M#11, M#12, M#14, M#17 and M#20 (1988) and M#19, M#25 (1989), Red and Blue Mobile (1988–90), Prehistoric Tables (1989–90) and Rain (1992). She begins the Anemones series (1990–2007).

Over the course of these years, she has a number of solo shows in galleries – Punto in Valencia; Theo in Barcelona; Evelio Gayubo in Valladolid (1989–90); and Jorge Kreisler in Madrid (1991) – and in institutions: the Espace Molière in Agde (France) (1988); the Museo de Bellas Artes in Bilbao (1990); La Ciudadela in Pamplona; and CAM Cultural in Elche (1991).

She participates in international exhibitions such as Textilia, interpretazioni Tessili e Trame nell’Arte at the Basilica Palladiana in Vicenza (Italy), Papier macht Raum, the title of the Second International Biennial of Paper Art in Düren and Fibres et fils at the Musée d’art et d’histoire in Belfort (France), Volùmina. Il libro oggetto rivisitato dalla donna artista del nostro secolo in Senigallia (Italy) (1988); Il librismo 1896-1990 in Cagliari (1990); Textilia’91 in Vicenza (1991); and Fe/mail Art in Senigallia (Italy) and Súhry ’92. Interplays ’92 in Bratislava (1992).

As part of the preparations for Expo ’92, the universal exposition held in Seville in 1992, she is commissioned to create an artwork on the façade of the Convent of Los Remedios, which she covers with coloured fabric. She appears in numerous group shows at home and abroad (principally Germany, Czechoslovakia and Italy, where there is particular interest in the book as an artistic medium).

She is awarded the Creu Sant Jordi by the Generalitat de Catalunya in 1993.

She participates in the exhibitions Focus on Fiber Art: Selections from the Growing 20th Century Collection at the Art Institute of Chicago; Libro e Segnalibro at the Museo dell’Informazione in Senigallia; and Small Works in Fiber. The Mildred Constantine Collection at the Cleveland Museum of Art (all in 1993). She is also included in a series of international exhibitions on the sculptural use of paper and the book, among them Starke Falten at the Museum Bellerive in Zurich (1995).

The Museu d’Art Modern de Tarragona presents the Aurèlia Muñoz. Estructures survey from June to August 1994. Her solo show Àngels i Esperit is held at the Pia Almoina in Barcelona between September and October 1995, featuring small and medium-format works such as Angels and Spirit, Evocation of a Space and Time, Romulus and Remus, and her Anemones, Mandalas, Figures, Books and Washi series, as well as objects and theatre performances.

She has solo shows at the Galeria Can Marc in Girona (1996) and at MX Espai 1010 and Hipòtesi tèxtil (1996, 2004 and 2007) in Barcelona. Commissioned by the Fundació Caixa Catalunya, she makes the maquette Study of a Catenary Arch for the Gaudí Crypt at Colònia Güell for the Espai Gaudí in La Pedrera in Barcelona, thereby paying tribute to one of her great creative influences.

She becomes interested in Japanese spirituality and traditional art and establishes contact with and joins the Mahikari religious community.

She participates in the group exhibition Living Waters, Contemporary European Fibre Art, held at the Jetty Barracks in the Suomenlinna in Helsinki; in the First French Paper Biennale in Montpellier (1997); and in The 20th-Century Textile Artist at the Art Institute of Chicago (1999).

She donates a number of her works to the Hikaru Museum in Takayama (Japan) and also to the Grand Château d’Ansembourg in Luxembourg, the regional headquarters of the Mahikari organisation.

She participates in the international small-format contemporary textile art exhibitions organised by the MX Espai 1010 gallery in Barcelona, among them Fet a fora/Foreign-Built (2002), Mirades llaurades/Ploughed Glances (2004) and Transnegatiu/Transnegative (2005); as well as in the Exposició Internacional d’Art Contemporani de Petit Format (2009) and L’Aleph (2010).

She is also included in the exhibitions Art Textile Contemporain. Collection of the Fondation Mary Toms-Pierre Pauli at the Musée Jean Lurçat et de la tapisserie contemporaine, in Angers (France) (2000); Fibras 08 at the Museo del Traje de Madrid (2008); and Escola catalana del tapís. El tapís contemporani català at the Museu de Sant Cugat-Casa Aymat (2009) and the Fundació Caixa de Terrassa (2010). Commissioned by the management of Colònia Güell, she and her grandson Adrià Rieradevall Ventosa, an architect, recreate Gaudí’s funicular maquette Study of a Catenary Arch for the Gaudí Crypt at Colònia Güell. She also makes a reinterpretation of the polyfunicular maquette of the main nave in the Sagrada Família. The maquette features in the exhibition Barcelona and Modernity: Picasso, Gaudí, Miró, Dalí at the Cleveland Art Museum and the Metropolitan Museum in New York (2006–07). A third large-scale maquette is made to a commission from the Colònia Güell Museum.

She donates a series of works on paper to the Museu Molí Paperer de Capellades, where one of her last two solo shows, entitled L’esperit del paper, is held. The other opens at the Galería N2 in Barcelona. In these exhibitions, she shows works from her final period, among them Hieroglyph, Prehistoric Table, Small Prehistoric Table, Sloping Table and White Aerial Book, as well as her Washi, Anemones, Mandales and Cubist Mobile series.

She dies in Barcelona on 9 June 2011.