Antoni Clavé

Barcelona, 1913 – Sant Tropez, 2005

Antoni Clavé was born in Barcelona in 1913, son of the painter and ceramist María Sanmartí. At the early age of thirteen he began to study at the School of Fine Arts of Barcelona, with Àngel Ferrant as his sculpture teacher. When he finished his studies he dedicated himself to poster design, and this is how he made himself known in his hometown, especially through movie advertising posters. In 1939 he went to Paris, fleeing the Franco regime; It is in the French capital where he made his first sculptures and where he began as an illustrator and theater decorator. Clavé is often enrolled in the School of Paris along with other artists such as Pablo Picasso, Juan Gris, Joan Miró or Antonio Saura. In the 1950s he began to make his series about warriors, kings, queens and knights influenced by medieval iconography as a result of his work in the world of scenography. In the 60s his works gave way to an increasingly marked abstraction that evolved in the 70s in which he also introduced various techniques such as collage or papier froissé. The latter was a technique that he continued to work on during the 80s. In 1984 he was awarded the Gold Medal of the Generalitat de Catalunya.