In 1976, Antoni Clavé completes the book for Bibliophiles “La Gloire des Rois”, by Saint John Perse. He had been asked to work on this project some 14 years earlier, and this is the occasion for him to show how he understands and interprets the poems by Saint John...
From the mid-eighties Clavé is known worldwide. The city council of Barcelona (Ajuntament) suggests he picks an area in the city so that he creates an artwork for his native town. Clavé chooses the Parc de la Ciutadella, a place full of memories for him (Sunday walks...
In 1965 in Barcelona, the Catalan painter and engraver Vila-Casas initiates Clavé into engraving. Clavé uses copper or zinc plates, and also learns about aquatint. Etching and aquatint are indirect engraving processes: the acid attacks the exposed metal, while tools...
No need to see his entire façade, its two imposing towers or the silhouette of the chevet of the church to immediately identify the cathedral Notre-Dame de Paris. The gaze and the melancholic pose of the horned monster, which maliciously sticks its tongue out leaves...
It is greetings season! Health, happiness, prosperity…This tradition of rather conventional wishes is dating back a few centuries. The format of the greeting card that we know today is more recent, since it appears in 1843 when Sir Henry Cole decides to sell a...
“365 jours après” forms part of the last works of Antoni Clavé. Completed in 2002, it has the vivacity and the freedom of a young creator of 89 who no longer has anything to prove. From Duchamp, Picasso, the collages and assemblages of surrealist objects, the 20th...
With “Avec des étoiles I” (“With the stars I”) Clavé surpassed his memories, his work on New York and extended his personal universe. This work gathers together the preferred mediums of the artist: the assembling of collages, torn paper, embossing, diverse materials,...
In October 1989, Antoni Clavé spent around ten days in New York, not for any exhibition but rather for leisure: he wanted to wander around, take photos, shoot films, and observe. This trip inspired him. After his return, he worked on a series of paintings, all grouped...
In 1986, Clavé travelled to Japan for a second time where his works were being exhibited in Tokyo, Osaka and Hakone. He found the country as fascinating as the last time he’d visited in 1972: Japan had entered a modernity that was dreamt about by the Europe of the...
In 1980 Clavé was asked to create a large-scale painting for the Barajas Airport in Madrid. The work he produced was monumental, 3 metres high by 9 metres wide, and can still be seen in Terminal 2 today. This commission was the beginning of Clavé’s taming of...