Antoni Tàpies
Grey Relief with Oval

Grey Relief with Oval
Grey Relief with Oval
Grey Relief with Oval
ArtistSpanish, 1923–2012
CultureSpanish
Titles
  • Grey Relief with Oval
Date1963
Made inSpain
MediumOil and sand on canvas
Dimensions46 1/4 × 35 in. (117.5 × 88.9 cm)
Credit LineMuseum purchase
Object number64.2
Non exposé

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Object Type
Description


 




Antoni Tàpies combined his pigments with marble dust, resin, and other non-art materials to create rough, densely worked surfaces, a technique that he called pintura matèrica (material or “matter” painting). Gray Relief with Oval is one of a series of works that evoke the somber and weather-worn walls of the artist’s native Catalonia, which had borne witness to decades of hardship brought about by the Spanish Civil War and General Franco’s dictatorship (1936–75). Tàpies stated: “My walls . . . do not avoid their responsibility and hold their full archetypal or symbolic weight.”



ProvenanceThe artist; sold through [Martha Jackson Gallery, New York]; purchased by MFAH, 1963.
Exhibition History"Miro in America," Meadows Museum, Southern Methodist University, Dallas, April 20–June 27, 1982. (LN:82.12).

"Direction and Diversity: Twentieth Century Art in the Museum Collection,” The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, May 21–September 3, 1988.

"Art at Midcentury: Spotlight on the Collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston," The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, April 13–September 3, 2001.

"The Abstract Impulse: Selections from the Modern and Contemporary Collections," The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, February 3–May 5, 2013.

"Europe 1900-1975: Selections from the Museum's Collection," The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, March 4, 2014–January 4, 2015.

Cataloguing data may change with further research.

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Untitled
Antoni Tàpies
1978
Aquatint, edition 17/50
91.1708.2
Untitled
Antoni Tàpies
1978
Aquatint, edition 17/50
91.1708.1
Untitled
Antoni Tàpies
1978
Aquatint, edition 17/50
91.1708.4
Untitled
Antoni Tàpies
1978
Aquatint, edition 17/50
91.1708.3
Untitled
Antoni Tàpies
1978
Aquatint, edition 17/50
91.1708.6
Untitled
Antoni Tàpies
1978
Aquatint, edition 17/50
91.1708.5
Untitled
Antoni Tàpies
1978
Aquatint, edition 17/50
91.1708.8
Untitled
Antoni Tàpies
1978
Aquatint, edition 17/50
91.1708.7
Donaues-Chingen
Antoni Tàpies
1968
Lithograph, edition of 75
72.40
Abstraction in Black, Red and Yellow
Antoni Tàpies
c. 1972
Lithograph, edition 55/150
91.1622
Untitled
Antoni Tàpies
possibly c. 1968
Lithograph, edition 35/100
90.322.12
Playing Shepherd
c. 1970
Oil and sand on canvas
71.64