Antoni Clavé (1913-2005) - Hommage à El Greco

Provenance

Estate of the artist
Galerie Semiha Huber, Zürich
Private collection Switzerland
Koller Auctions, Zürich
Private collection Netherlands

Antoni Clavé (1913–2005)
Homage to El Greco, 1964

Important original work by the internationally renowned Catalan artist Antoni Clavé (1913–2005), created in 1964. Antoni Clavé is widely regarded as one of the three leading modern painters of Catalonia, alongside Joan Miró and Antoni Tàpies. In this impressive painting Clavé pays homage to the great Spanish Renaissance master Domenikos Theotokopoulos (El Greco). Clavé translates the historical exemplar into his own immediately recognizable visual language, characterized by strong expressiveness, rich layering, and a monumental appearance.

The expressive composition is marked by a rich layering of paint, strong brushwork, and a subtle interplay of deep blacks and browns with warm golds and ochre tones. The result is a monumental and timeless portrayal in which the ancient Spanish painting tradition merges with postwar modernism.

The work is executed in oil on paper, mounted on Masonite, and signed lower right. On the back are also the artist’s signature, the original title, the date, and the dimensions.

The painting has recently been professionally reframed in a high-quality, museum-grade frame and equipped with museum glass (99). This new presentation allows the rich colors and the texture of the paint to be seen to best advantage, while at the same time providing excellent protection for the work. The current framing gives the painting an especially elegant and museum-worthy appearance, making it immediately suitable for a high-quality private collection.

Due to the very high-quality museum glass, there is some glare/reflection in the photos.
Under UV light no retouches have been detected. The invoice from Koller Auctions is available.

A powerful, distinctive, and excellently documented work by one of the most important Catalan artists of the twentieth century. Paintings by Antoni Clavé are now in the collections of, among others, the Musée National d’Art Moderne (Centre Pompidou), the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, and the Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya (MNAC).