ANTONI TAPIES HAS PASSED AWAY

The great painter Antoni Tàpies died yesterday in Barcelona, he was one of my favourite artist, I dedicated two of my post in this blog to him and his Foundation, here you have the links:
Antoni Tàpies Foundation
The Montane Simo Publish House

Also a little of his genius:

 Inside Tàpies Foundation

Chair and Cloud on the top of the Montané Simó Publish House

The controversial sculpture of  a sock

MONTANE SIMO PUBLISH HOUSE, THE TÀPIES FONDATION

The Tàpies Fondation is a lovely museum dedicated to Antoni Tàpies, well-knonw Catalan contemporany painter, it is located in the urban expansion area of Barcelona, in Aragon street, next to Gracia Avenue, in the picture above we can see the building restored as museum, it is an ancient old publish house from our Modernism period

In the old picture above we can see the building when it was finished in 1885 by Lluis Domènech i Montané, very important modernism architet, it is also vey curious to see the balustrade of the railway opened in the Aragon street.

Antoni Tàpies Foundation

Antoni Tàpies is a very important abstract expressionism painter from Barcelona, and his foundation has been closed for two years in order to refurbish the building. The Antoni Tàpies Foundation has been opened two days ago, and it is a very interesting place to visit for many reasons, let me tell you some of them:

1.The building is beautiful, white, clean and peaceful. The Tàpies Foundation is situated in the Modernista (Art Nouveau) building of a publishing house, Editorial Montaner i Simon, designed by Lluis Domenech i Montaner, the architect of El Palau de la Música Catalana, L'Hospital de Sant Pau, La Casa Fuster...,and restored by the firm of architects Ábalos + Sentkiewicz

2. The collection is great, even if you do not like contemporary art, because they have exposed not only Tàpies paintings. They have organized the collections in a very clever way in order to bring closer to the visitors the works by Tàpies. They have spread the collection  in two sections:

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  In the first place: situated at the basement of the foundation, where you have the opportunity of seeing diferents objects owned and loved by Tàpies, objects  that have influeced the painter and his artistic development.
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  In the second place: a very good selection of Tàpies paintings, that show us the evolution of the artist for more than 60 years of career.

3. The sock, (el Mitjó) the controversial sculpture that was designed for the MNAC (National Museum of Catalan Art) in 1992, but finally refused due to political reasons, display in the the terrace of the Foundation, in the middle of the courtyard of the block of houses.