Collectable

The unconscious, a source of life

Tàpies at MACBA (4)

collectable

Dau al Set (grup d'artistes). Dau al Set, 1949

Antoni Tàpies began experimenting with art in 1942, when, aged only nineteen and afflicted by a pulmonary illness, he was bedridden for several months. Although he had already taught himself to draw and paint, it wasn’t until then that he truly discovered his vocation. In 1944, at the age of twenty-one and fully recovered, he began to study Law, but he soon gave it up to dedicate himself to painting. By the end of the 1940s, he had already exhibited some of his works, marked by a strong personality, and in 1948, together with Joan Ponç, Joan Brossa, Modest Cuixart, Joan-Josep Tharrats and Arnau Puig, he founded Dau al Set, an avant-garde group and magazine. Tàpies was interested in Surrealism, psychoanalysis and science, and initiated relationships that proved fundamental, such as his friendship with Joan Miró. ‘Beyond the descriptive procedures of Surrealist artists, I felt the need to delve into things and enter the collective unconscious, which, far from being sickly, is a source of life’, he recalled in an interview of 2002. While his work during those years revealed the influence of Miró and Klee, he soon discovered the magic themes, geometry and colour studies that would result in his matter paintings.