Antoni Clavé (5 April 1913 – 31 August 2005) was a Catalan master painter, printmaker, sculptor, stage designer and

costume designer A costume designer is a person who designs costumes for a film, stage production or television show. The role of the costume designer is to create the characters' outfits or costumes and balance the scenes with texture and colour, etc. The costum ...

. He was nominated for two

Academy Awards The Academy Awards, commonly known as the Oscars, are awards for artistic and technical merit in film. They are presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) in the United States in recognition of excellence in ...

(

Best Art Direction The Academy Award for Best Production Design recognizes achievement for art direction in film. The category's original name was Best Art Direction, but was changed to its current name in 2012 for the 85th Academy Awards. This change resulted fro ...

and Best Costume Design) for his work on the 1952 film ''

Hans Christian Andersen Hans Christian Andersen ( , ; 2 April 1805 – 4 August 1875) was a Danish author. Although a prolific writer of plays, travelogue (literature), travelogues, novels, and poems, he is best remembered for his literary fairy tales. Andersen's fai ...

''. Clavé was one of Spain's best known and most celebrated artists. His work evolved from a baroque, ornamental style to a pure, minimal aesthetic. In his later years, his work is completely abstract, employing expressive lines and exploring the boundaries of collage, objet trove, shading, texture and color. He was trained at the School of Fine Arts, Barcelona, where he was taught by Angel Ferrant and Felix Mestres. With his works being influenced by artists such as Bonnard, Vuillard and Roualt. He is best known for his lyrical abstractions, works which combine paint with collage.

Biography

Clavé fought in the Republican Army in the Spanish Civil War, and served as draughtsman for the Republican government. He arrived in France as a refugee in 1939 and went straight to Paris to work as an illustrator. His first one-man exhibition was held at the Au sans Pareil bookshop, 37

Avenue Kléber The Avenue Kléber () is an avenue in the 16th arrondissement of Paris, France, one of the twelve avenues that converge on the Place Charles de Gaulle. It was named after Jean Baptiste Kléber, a French general during the French Revolutionary W ...

in Paris in 1940, where

Max Ernst Max Ernst (; 2 April 1891 – 1 April 1976) was a German-born painter, sculptor, printmaker, graphic artist, and poet. A prolific artist, Ernst was a primary pioneer of the Dada movement and surrealism in Europe. He had no formal artistic trai ...

and other leading figures from the

Dada Dada () or Dadaism was an anti-establishment art movement that developed in 1915 in the context of the Great War and the earlier anti-art movement. Early centers for dadaism included Zürich and Berlin. Within a few years, the movement had s ...

movement had their first exhibitions in the 1920s. In 1944 Clavé met Picasso and began making figure compositions that were deeply influenced by Picasso's work, featuring kings, harlequins, children, and still lives. His theatrical designs have appeared on stages in New York, Munich, London and Paris, as well as in the 1952 film ''

''. His works include sets for opera, theatre, and ballet, most notably for

Roland Petit Roland Petit (13 January 192410 July 2011) was a French ballet company director, choreographer and dancer. He trained at the Paris Opera Ballet school, and became well known for his creative ballets. Life and work The son of shoe designer Ro ...

's ballet company, Les Ballets des Champs Elysees (1945-1951) including ''Los Caprichos'' (1946) ''

Carmen ''Carmen'' () is an opera in four acts by the French composer Georges Bizet. The libretto was written by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy, based on the novella of the same title by Prosper Mérimée. The opera was first performed by the O ...

'' (1949) and a

comic ballet Comic ballet is a subcategory of narrative ballet, and denotes a dramatic work of a light or comic nature. Catherine de' Medici, Catherine d'Medici enjoyed the Italian custom of staging entertainments where classical or allegorical legends were re ...

choreographed by Roland Petit called ''Deuil en 24 Heures''. In 1951 he designed ''La maison de Bernarda Alba'' (''The House of Bernarda Alba'') for director Marcel Achard at the Theatre de l'Oeuvre in Paris, and in 1962, a production of ''The Marriage of Figaro'' for Maurice Sarrazin at Théatre de la cour de l'Archeveché in Aix-en-Provence. In 1957 Clavé began to design carpets and from 1960 he began to work on sculptural bas reliefs, assemblages and totem-like sculptures of wood and modelled or imprinted lead.ExploreArt - Antoni Clavé
Accessed 23 March 2016 He also used some objets trouvé. In 1965 Clavé moved to the South of France, near Saint-Tropez. His work is displayed in many museums, including the

Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco (FAMSF), comprising the de Young Museum in Golden Gate Park and the Legion of Honor in Lincoln Park, is the largest public arts institution in the city of San Francisco. FAMSF's combined attendance was 1,1 ...

National Museum of Serbia The National Museum of Serbia () is the largest and oldest museum in Belgrade, Serbia. It is located in the central zone of Belgrade on a square plot between the Republic Square (Belgrade), Republic Square, formerly Theatre Square, and three stree ...

, Museo Patio Herreriano de Valladolid in Spain Museo Patio Herresriano,

Tate Gallery Tate is an institution that houses, in a network of four art galleries, the United Kingdom's national collection of British art, and international modern and contemporary art. It is not a government institution, but its main sponsor is the UK ...

, London, Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao,

Museum of Modern Art, Paris A museum is an institution dedicated to displaying or preserving culturally or scientifically significant objects. Many museums have exhibitions of these objects on public display, and some have private collections that are used by researchers ...

, Museo Nacional de Arte Reina Sofia Museo Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid, the Museum of Modern Art in Tokyo and

The British Museum The British Museum is a Museum, public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is the largest in the world. It documents the story of human cu ...

, London.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Clave, Antoni 1913 births 2005 deaths Spanish costume designers Painters from Catalonia Sculptors from Catalonia Spanish set decorators Spanish printmakers Burials at Montparnasse Cemetery Painters from Barcelona Spanish contemporary artists 20th-century Spanish sculptors 20th-century Spanish male artists Spanish male sculptors 20th-century Spanish painters Spanish male painters 20th-century printmakers