Los ojos del follaje (The Eyes of Foliage)

Details

Antoni Tàpies (1923-2012)
Los ojos del follaje (The Eyes of Foliage)
signed, dated and inscribed 'Tàpies - / "ELS ULLS DEL FUJATGE" – 1949' (on the reverse)
oil on canvas
35 1/2 x 46 1/8 in. (90 x 117 cm.)
Painted in 1949.

Provenance

Collection Güell, by 1967.
Dau al Set Galeria d'Art, by 1985.
Galeria Artema, Barcelona.
Acquired from the above by the present owner by 1990.

Literature

E. d’Ors, ‘La despedida de soltero del vanguardismo español’, in Mundo Hispánico, Madrid, no. 25, April 1950, p. 33.
G. Gatt, Antoni Tàpies, Bologna, 1967, no. 20 (illustrated; with incorrect dimensions).
M. Tapié, Antoni Tàpies, Milan, 1969, p. 23 (illustrated pl. 27; with incorrect dimensions).
A. Cirici, Tàpies: Witness of Silence, Barcelona, 1972, no. 58, p. 358 (illustrated p. 103; with incorrect dimensions).
J. Vallès Rovira, Tàpies Empremta (art-vida), Barcelona, 1982, p. 93 (illustrated; with incorrect dimensions).
A. Agustí, Tàpies: The Complete Works, vol. I, 1943-1960, Barcelona 1990, no. 202, pp. 104, 526 (illustrated; with incorrect dimensions).
A. Franzke, Tàpies, Munich, 1992, pp. 48-49, 357 (illustrated pl. 24, p. 52; with incorrect dimensions).
J. A. López Manzanares, Madrid antes de “El Paso”: La renovación artística en la postguerra madrileña (doctoral thesis, Universidad Complutense de Madrid), 2006, no. 74, pp. 186-187, 194, 214 & 217 (illustrated p. 428; with incorrect dimensions).

Exhibited

Madrid, Academia Breve de Crítica de Arte, Séptimo Salón de los Once, 1949.
Barcelona, Instituto Francés, Un aspecto de la joven pintura. Cuixart, Ponç, Tapiès, December 1949 - January 1950, no. 24.
Barcelona, Dau al Set Galeria d'Art, A l'entorn de Dau al Set, April 1985.
Valladolid, Sala Municipal de Exposiciones del Museo de Pasión, El Mundo de Dau al Set, December 2008 – January 2009, n.n.(illustrated with incorrect orientation p. 66; with incorrect dimensions); this exhibition later travelled to Barcelona, Fran Daurel Foundation, Dau al Set, April 2009; and Zaragoza, October - December 2009, n.n. (illustrated p. 43; with incorrect dimensions).

Special Notice

Artist's Resale Right ("Droit de Suite"). Artist's Resale Right Regulations 2006 apply to this lot, the buyer agrees to pay us an amount equal to the resale royalty provided for in those Regulations, and we undertake to the buyer to pay such amount to the artist's collection agent.

Brought to you by

Olivier Camu

ocamu@christies.com +44 (0) 20 7389 2450

Lot Essay

‘...I tried, rather like Miró, to lend everything, even the most insignificant subjects and motifs, something in the nature of a cosmic aspect and scope; all the elements correspond with each other in gigantic constellations. Figures, trees, mountains, they were all like sources of pure energy, a pure glow that suffused everything... Everything formed and dissolved again in a single pantheistic flux in which the grandiose space of the galaxies was interpenetrated with microscopically small structures. Even the colours serve less to make bodies clearly visible; rather, they were full of intrinsic life, phosphorescent sources, glowing miasmas.’ – Antoni Tàpies
(Tàpies quoted in A. Franzke, Tàpies, Münich 1992, p.48.)

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