Antoni Tàpies i Puig, first marquis of Tàpies, was born on the 13th December 1923, in Barcelona.

He began his artistic experiments during a long convalescence from a serious illness. His growing dedication to drawing and painting led him to abandon his university studies. In the 1940s he exhibited his works, which, with their strong personality, made him stand out in the artistic panorama of the time.

He co-founded the magazine Dau al Set (1948). Influenced by Miró and Klee, he developed the iconographic factor and the magical theme. Little by little he incorporated geometric elements and colour studies that led to an interest in matter, which he translated into canvases of intense texture and great expressive and communicative capacity. With these works, Tàpies received international recognition in the mid-1950s.

From the sixties onwards he incorporated new iconographic elements (writing signs, anthropomorphic elements, footprints and symbols alluding to the reality of Catalonia) and technical procedures (new surfaces, the use of everyday objects and varnish). Tàpies' pictorial language has evolved since then and has resulted in a diverse and productive plastic creation admired all over the world.