Antoni Clavé

ANTONI CLAVÉ I SANMARTÍ (Barcelona, 1913 - Saint Tropez, France, 2005).
"Roi. 1959.
Oil on canvas.
Signed and dated in the lower margin.
Measurements: 64 x 49 cm; 91 x 74 cm (frame).

Antoni Clavé's painting "Roi" is a work that reveals the artist's experimentation with material textures and his characteristic focus on medieval and symbolic themes linked to figures of kings and knights. In "Roi" we perceive an abstract and textured representation of power and authority, reflecting Clavé's interest in royal figures reinterpreted in a material and expressive way. At this stage of his production, Clavé was influenced by the Spanish tradition, but also by European avant-garde currents. The painting presents a figure of a king transformed into a mysterious image, with traces of archetypal elements, such as the fleurs-de-lis. This treatment allows him to explore not only the monarchical figure as a symbol but also to investigate the aesthetic qualities themselves, also dialoguing with the tradition of official monarchical portraits. The color palette is earthy and somber, suggesting ideas linked to solemnity, decadence and the concealment of identity. The work evokes a sense of majesty, but at the same time of attrition or deconstruction, as if the king were emerging from an archaic time or fading into it.

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.