Tàpies and Clavé: two paths to abstraction

Although they belonged to different generations, Antoni Clavé and Antoni Tàpies developed their careers within the context of postwar artistic renewal in Spain. At different times, both contributed to the expansion of painting into new languages, during a period when numerous artists began to question inherited models of representation and seek new forms of expression. In their respective works, this process resulted in a gradual departure from traditional representation and a growing focus on the possibilities of material, surface, gesture, and color. Their paths toward abstraction, however, were fundamentally different. In Clavé’s work, the image arises from the fragmentation, superimposition,