Personal Memoir

A Personal Memoir: Fragments for an Autobiography integrates the memoirs of Antoni Tàpies, beginning in pre–civil war Barcelona and extending to Francoist Madrid, existentialist Paris, and New York in the 1950s, with historical images from diverse sources, including the family and the artist's archives. Tàpies's reflections on his interactions with such prominent cultural figures as Picasso, Miró, and Duchamp, on his approach to modernity and the avant-garde, and on the historical events of his lifetime--from his birth in 1923 to the 1970s--provide insights into the inner sources and development of his art. Highlighting the close ties between his writings and his visual work, this volume includes a generous selection of both colour and black-and-white images that trace the unfolding of Tàpies's artistic language from the 1940s to the present. Complete Writings, Volume II, Collected Essays, will be published in fall 2010.

Antoni Tàpies, Translated by Josep Sobrer

"Tàpies's writings are an excellent companion to his painted work. . . . His memoirs bestow extraordinary knowledge about his coming of age as a young artist and also provide astonishing information about cultural life in Barcelona, Catalonia, and Spain under Franco's dictatorship.

Justification and Acknowledgments City and Childhood; The Republic. The War; A Sickly Youth; Vocation and Love; Catalan Roots. Psychoanalysis and Marxism; Paris. Teresa. The Desert; New York. Confirmation of a Discourse; The Orient and the Practice of Walking Antoni Tàpies: Chronology; Selected Public Collections; Selected Works; List of Selected Works; Index of Names; List of Illustrations