Homenatge a Miguel Hernández

Details

Antoni Tàpies (1923-2012)
Homenatge a Miguel Hernández
signed, dated and inscribed '"HOMENATGE" 1951 Tàpies' (on the reverse)
oil on canvas
45 ¾ x 28 5/8 in. (116.1 x 72.8 cm.)
Painted in 1951

Provenance

Private collection, Spain.
Galerie Beyeler, Basel (no. 5587), by whom acquired from the above on 3 December 1968.
Acquired from the above on 7 June 1969, and thence by descent to the present owner.

Literature

A. Cirici, Tàpies, Witness of Silence, Barcelona, 1972, p. 359 (illustrated pl. 94, p. 146).
A. Agustí, Tàpies, The Complete Works, vol. I, 1943-1960, New York, 1989, no. 375, p. 170 (illustrated).
A. Franzke, Tàpies, Munich, 1992, p. 357 (illustrated pl. 35, p. 65).
A. Tàpies, A Personal Memoir. Fragments for an Autobiography (Complete Writings. Vol. I), Barcelona, 2009, p. 240, under note 1.

Exhibited

Barcelona, Galeries Laietanes, Tàpies, May 1952, no. 27.
Mataró, Museo Municipal, Antoni Tàpies, January 1953, no. 20.
Basel, Galerie Beyeler, Spanish artists, Gris, Picasso, Miró, Chillida, Tàpies, May - July 1969, no. 53, p. 88 (illustrated p. 65; titled 'Home Nat Ge').
Zurich, Kunsthaus Zürich, Vereinigung Zürcher Kunstfreunde, Mitglieder zeigen ihr meistdiskutiertes Kunstwerk aus eigenem Besitz, October - November 1971, no. 133, p. 59 (titled 'nat gem home').

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. These lots have been imported from outside the EU or, if the UK has withdrawn from the EU without an agreed transition deal, from outside of the UK for sale and placed under the Temporary Admission regime. Import VAT is payable at 5% on the hammer price. VAT at 20% will be added to the buyer’s premium but will not be shown separately on our invoice.

Brought to you by

Olivier Camu

ocamu@christies.com +44 207 389 2450

Lot Essay

Antoni Tàpies’s Homenatge a Miguel Hernández is not only a powerful composition full of surreal icons, signs and symbols, but an important political and revolutionary cry. Miguel Hernández is one of the greatest and best-loved Spanish poets associated with the literary movements Generation of '27 and the Generation of '36. He was arrested due to his active participation on the Republican side of the Spanish Civil War, and died of tuberculosis while imprisoned in 1942. Tàpies was a great admirer of the poet, writing: ‘I became aware of the tragic life and poetry of Miguel Hernández for whom I felt a great esteem and to whom I rendered homage in a painting, as I had done for García Lorca’ (A. Tàpies, A Personal Memoir. Fragments for an Autobiography, Barcelona, 2009, p. 240). The present work is based on the 23rd sonnet included in Hernández’s book of poetry El rayo que no cesa (The Unending Lightning), purchased by Tàpies in Paris in 1950. The artist has represented the analogy that Hernández made between the bull and a man in love: he noted the animal is born to be wounded and then killed by a sword during a bullfight, and compares it to the man and how love can hurt in the same deadly way.

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