ANTONI CLAVÉ I SANMARTÍ (Barcelona, 1913 - Saint Tropez, France, 2005). "Hairdresser's study for the marriage of Figaro", 1952. Mixed media on black

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Contemporary and Actual Art

By Setdart Auction House

Dec 15, 2021

Set Reminder 2021-12-15 07:00:00 2021-12-15 07:00:00 America/New_York Bidsquare Bidsquare : Contemporary and Actual Art https://www.bidsquare.com/auctions/setdart-auction-house/contemporary-and-actual-art-7967
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  ANTONI CLAVÉ I SANMARTÍ (Barcelona, 1913 - Saint Tropez, France, 2005). "Hairdresser's study for the marriage of Figaro", 1952. Mixed media on black paper. Attached certificate of authenticity issued by the Antoni Clavé Archive. Signed in the lower right corner. Measurements: 53 x 25 cm; 52 x 45 cm (frame). From 1946 to 1955 Antoni Clave worked intensely on the artistic development of numerous ballet, opera and theater scenographies, which took him to different countries such as the United States, Paris and London. In the case of this particular piece, which represents a hairdresser's studio, the author conceived the image for the figurines of Mozart's Marriage of Figaro, presented at the Festival d'Aix en Provence in 1952. Antoni Clavé is one of the most relevant figures of Spanish contemporary art. Trained at the School of Fine Arts of San Jordi in Barcelona, Clavé was initially dedicated to advertising graphics, illustration and decorative arts. In 1936 he took an active part in the Civil War, in the Republican ranks, which led him to go into exile in France at the end of the war. That same year, 1939, he exhibits the drawings he made on the battlefields. He settled in Paris, where he met Vuillard, Bonnard and Picasso. From this period on, Clavé began to develop a work marked by a different, less classical plastic art. During this period his figures began to lose precision and form, giving way to the stroke and a personal range of colors and textures that would be the protagonist of his works from then on. He already enjoyed great international prestige at the time when he began to be recognized in Spain, after his exhibition at the Gaspar Gallery in Barcelona in 1956. In the sixties he made a tribute to El Greco, and his painting of this time reveals the influences received from that master, as well as from the Baroque painters. Of special relevance is the theme of the knight with his hand on his chest, a reference that will be repeated in Clavé's future works. This period is characterized by the definitive step towards abstraction. In the seventies Clavé's work continued to evolve, using diverse techniques such as collage, and inventing new ones such as "papier froissé", the result of a chance use of aerosol on crumpled paper. In 1978, the National Museum of Modern Art in Paris, now the Georges Pompidou Center, dedicated a retrospective to him that made him one of the most prestigious artists of his generation. His latest works are characterized by the recreation of textures within abstraction, with a profuse use of "papier froissé". He was awarded prizes at the Hallimark in New York in 1948, at the Venice Biennial in 1954 and at the International Biennial in Tokyo in 1957. In 1984 the Spanish State recognized his artistic value with the exhibition of more than one hundred of his works in the Spanish pavilion at the Venice Biennale. That same year he was awarded the Gold Medal of the Generalitat de Catalunya. Clavé's work can be found, among many others, in the Bilbao Fine Arts Museum, the Tate Gallery, the Modern Art Museum in Paris and Tokyo, the British Museum and the Reina Sofía Museum in Madrid.
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