ANTONI CLAVÉ I SANMARTÍ (Barcelona, 1913 - Saint... Lot 99

ANTONI CLAVÉ I SANMARTÍ (Barcelona, 1913 - Saint Tropez, France, 2005). "Retour du Japon, 1975-1986. Mixed media (oil and collage) on canvas. Titled and dated on the back. Signed. Measurements: 77 x 46 cm; 100 x 70 cm (frame). The series "Retour du Japon" reveals Clavé's close relationship with Japanese culture. Made between 1986 and 1987, it consists of a series of works in which the author captures the impressions received during his stay in the country. The presence of contrasting colors and the influence of the Zen spirit and Taoism are the distinctive features of the series. Clavé presented his first paintings of this series in 1986 at the Chozo Yoshii gallery in Paris, the same year in which he held four exhibitions in four museums in Japan: the Metropolitan Teien in Tokyo, the National Art Museum in Osaka, the Kiyoaru Shirakaba and the Yamanashi-Ken in Hakone. The following year, in 1987, he will present the series at the Sala Gaspar in Barcelona. Antoni Clavé is one of the most relevant figures of Spanish contemporary art. Trained at the Escuela de Bellas Artes de 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. 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. At the same time, he made illustrations for the work "Gargantua and Pantagruel", which led him to become familiar with medieval iconography. In this same decade of the fifties is when he began his intense work in the world of ballet and theater, achieving great fame in the world of international scenography. In 1952 he made the sets for the film "Hans Christian Andersen", by Charles Vidor, and was nominated for an Oscar award. In 1954, he abandoned set design to devote himself to painting. He received awards 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 Fine Arts Museum in Bilbao, the Tate Gallery, the Museum of Modern Art in Paris, the British Museum in London, the Museum of Modern Art in Tokyo and the Reina Sofía Museum in Madrid.