Antoni Tàpies was a Catalan painter, sculptor, printmaker and writer widely acclaimed for his ‘matter paintings’. As a pioneer of Art Informel, Tàpies used sand, dust, wood as well as paint and varnish to create alchemical paintings which connect base materials with an unseen, metaphysical world. Since the 1950s, his palette kept to raw natural colours: burnt black, earth brown, wine red, rust red, the gold of sand or marble. A private syntax of ciphers abounds in Tàpies’ work, often appearing as an amalgam of Eastern calligraphy and Western graffiti. His ubiquitous ‘cross’, as seen here, simultaneously signifies the first letter of his surname, a kiss, an erasure, a location, a vote, or a mark of faith. Tàpies assuredly takes his place as one of the great Spanish artists of the 20th century