Antoni Tàpies made pictures that behave like surfaces you could touch: a blackboard full of chalk marks, a dark wall with scratches catching the light, a white field crossed by a single gesture. For designers, his work shows how much a background can carry: texture, a few signs and a short palette do the work of figures and perspective.
Because Tàpies died in 2012, his work is still in copyright, and none of the records held by the museums used for this guide is flagged public domain or CC0. This guide is therefore text only: it describes works with the museum that holds them, and it does not reproduce them or suggest that they are free to use. For public domain reference images by other artists, browse the MGD museum inspiration collection.
Who was Antoni Tàpies?
The Art Institute of Chicago, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Cleveland Museum of Art all give his dates as 1923–2012 and describe him as Spanish; the Art Institute’s record for a 1973 scarf calls him “French, born Spain”, and the museums spell his first name variously as Antoni or Antonio. Published accounts say he was born in Barcelona, studied law before devoting himself to painting in the 1940s, and in 1948 helped found Dau al Set, a Barcelona group of artists and writers associated with Surrealism and Dada.
From the 1950s he became known for what is often called matter painting: published accounts describe him mixing clay and marble dust into paint and working waste paper, string and rags into the surface. The Fundació Antoni Tàpies in Barcelona, which published accounts say he established in 1984, appears in the Art Institute’s records as a named entity in its own right.
What to look at: the surface as the subject
Tàpies asks you to look at the surface, not through it. In the prints described below, the main field is often a single flat or mottled tone, dark or pale, that fills most of the sheet. Marks sit on it or are scratched into it: short strokes, small crosses, loops, numerals and letters.
Three things to notice:
- Scale contrast. A large quiet field against small, nervous marks. The marks look more important because there is so much calm around them.
- Light out of dark. Many works use pale marks on a dark ground, so the image seems to be scratched out rather than drawn on.
- Edges and frames. A border, a margin or a frame inside the image often turns the field into an object, such as a slate or a panel.
Our guide to Jean Dubuffet covers a French contemporary who also built pictures from thick, wall-like surfaces, and the guide to Pierre Soulages follows another painter who made light out of black.
Key works in museum collections
Untitled lithographs, 1959. The Art Institute of Chicago holds two untitled lithographs from 1959, one on cream wove paper and one in black and grey, on sheets about 75 by 105 centimetres. In the first, a broad black rectangle fills the centre of the sheet and a loose grid of light scratches crosses it, with a row of small marks along its lower edge. The second leaves much more paper open: grey washes, like stains on a wall, run across the sheet and a thin black line loops through them. The Met holds three lithographs of 1959 by Tàpies, catalogued as Untitled Abstraction and Untitled, on sheets of a similar size.
Triangle aux Emprientes, 1967. The Cleveland Museum of Art holds this colour lithograph, published by Maeght Editeur in Paris and printed by Arte A. Maeght. The museum records the inscription in the lower margin in graphite as “40/75 Tapies”: an edition number and the artist’s signature, in the standard position for a limited-edition print. The title, as the museum spells it, refers to a triangle and to imprints.
Pissarra, 1972. This large print at the Art Institute of Chicago is catalogued as etching and carborundum in black, ochre and white inks. The museum explains that Tàpies used a carborundum paste on the plate, instead of laboriously roughening it by hand, to get the rugged look of a blackboard. The image is a black field inside a broad ochre frame, like a school slate, covered with pale scratched marks, crosses and figures, with the signature small in a lower corner.
Scarf, 1973. The Art Institute also holds a silk twill scarf, screen printed, designed by Tàpies, produced in Lyon by Maison Abraham and printed for Galerie Adrien Maeght in Paris. On a white square almost 90 centimetres across, two thin orange lines cross from corner to corner, and a single brushy patch of the same orange sits where they meet. The signature appears small in one corner. It shows his sign language moved onto a product.
Later prints. The Cleveland Museum of Art holds Apparitions–2 (1983), an etching and aquatint given by The Print Club of Cleveland, and Red on a Piece of Newspaper, a colour lithograph the museum dates to about 1945–75.
Technique: making texture print
Each of these techniques gets texture onto paper differently.
- Lithography. Drawing with greasy crayon or washes on stone or plate keeps the grain of the drawing surface. The 1959 sheets use that grain to suggest stained or weathered walls.
- Carborundum. Carborundum is a hard abrasive grit. Applied to a printing plate in a paste, it creates a rough surface that holds a lot of ink, which is why the Art Institute links the technique in Pissarra to the saturated backgrounds of Tàpies’s paintings.
- Etching and aquatint. Aquatint gives tone through a fine resin ground on the plate; combined with etched lines, as in Apparitions–2, it lets broad areas and sharp marks share one sheet.
- Screen printing on silk. The scarf shows how a gesture can survive a commercial process: the orange patch keeps the drag of a brush even though it was screened.
Our guides to lithography and to the wider printmaking collection explain the basic processes.
Signs, letters and the signature
Tàpies used a small set of marks again and again. In the works described here you can see crosses, an X, numerals, loops and letter-like scratches. They act like graffiti on a wall. Because the set is small and repeated, it works like a visual identity.
His signature belongs to that system. On Pissarra and the scarf it is a quick scrawl, close in weight to the other marks, so it reads as part of the surface rather than a label. In the Cleveland lithograph, the museum’s record shows it in the conventional place for editioned prints, in graphite in the lower margin next to the edition number.
Palette: black, ochre, white and one accent
The palettes in these prints are very short. The Art Institute lists black, ochre and white inks for Pissarra; the 1959 lithographs work in black and grey on cream paper; the scarf uses orange on white. A single bright accent, when it appears, gets all the attention. No colour values are given because no image is reproduced here.
How designers can borrow Antoni Tàpies’s ideas
- Make the background do the work. Build a textured field, such as grain, scratches or stains, and let a few elements sit on it. It suits posters, book covers and album art.
- Design a small sign vocabulary. Pick three or four marks, such as a cross, a loop or a numeral, and repeat them across a series so they become an identity.
- Frame the field. A border like the ochre frame of Pissarra turns a flat area into an object and gives the layout a clear edge.
- Use one accent. Keep the palette to neutrals and earth tones, then add one bright colour for the single most important mark.
- Let a gesture scale. The scarf shows that one bold diagonal and one patch of colour can carry a square product.
When you make textures in this spirit, make your own. Tàpies’s images are in copyright and should not be sampled or traced without permission.
Frequently asked questions
What is Antoni Tàpies known for?
For abstract paintings and prints built around thick, wall-like surfaces and scratched signs. Published accounts associate him with matter painting and with the Barcelona group Dau al Set, founded in 1948.
Where can I see prints by Tàpies?
The Art Institute of Chicago, the Met and the Cleveland Museum of Art all hold prints by him, including lithographs of 1959, Pissarra (1972) and Triangle aux Emprientes (1967).
What is a carborundum print?
A print made from a plate coated with a paste containing carborundum grit. The rough coating holds ink, giving deep, textured tones; the Art Institute describes Tàpies using it for the blackboard look of Pissarra.
Are Antoni Tàpies images public domain?
No. He died in 2012, and the museums do not flag his works as public domain or CC0, so this guide describes them in text only. Ask the rights holder before reproducing any of them.
