Als mestres de Catalunya

Created in 1974, Als mestres de Catalunya belongs to the series Antoni Tàpies dedicated to the key figures of Catalan culture he championed during the years of Franco’s repression. The sheet reads almost like a page torn from the artist’s notebook. Words, letters, numbers and signs are laid down with the immediacy of handwriting, and the image is organised around the one idea that runs through the whole series: Catalonia.

The upper half is dominated by energetic, contrasting gestures. On the left, a cluster of vertical red strokes rises like flickering flames or dragged fingertips. On the right, a thick red brushstroke curls into a hook that sweeps across the sheet. At the centre sits a dense black mark, violently scratched and crossed out over a grey lithographic texture. Loose capital letters float around it, spelling out fragments of CATALUNYA, alongside a small handwritten sum of numbers and a looping line that runs beneath the dedication.

Written in the artist’s own hand, the dedication “Als mestres de Catalunya” rests directly above the image’s strongest element. A wide band of saffron yellow crosses the sheet from edge to edge, its dry, dragged brushwork leaving the texture of the stroke visible at both ends.

Below the yellow band, the composition becomes quieter and more open. A cross appears, one of the signs that recur most often in Tàpies’ work, followed by the letters L, U, N, Y and A. They descend diagonally across the paper, completing the word CATALUNYA that was broken up above. Beside a sharp V-shaped line, the word “Sardana” is written in a fine, delicate stroke, a reference to Catalonia’s traditional dance. In the lower left corner, a heavy red form folds in on itself over a firm black line. In the lower right, the simple outline of an open hand holds a single drop of red.

Set against the warm, cream-toned paper, the palette of red, yellow and black gives the work a direct, emblematic force. Tàpies turns writing, gesture and symbol into a single visual language, and the result is at once a declaration of identity and an intimate act of homage. H.C. Hand signed by Tàpies