"I"

Antoni Tàpies

1961

A small canvas built up with latex paint mixed with marble dust into a dry, sandy field, scored near the top with a single carved letter “I,” in which Tàpies turns a lone sign into a tactile, almost ritual object.

At first you register a muted, skin-like surface—worn, dusty, and hush-toned—then your eye is arrested by the crude incision of the “I,” whose rough edges and shadow compel a sense of touch and presence.

By privileging texture and a solitary mark over representation, Tàpies helped shift postwar painting toward objecthood and material signification, showing how humble materials and a single symbol can carry poetic and cultural weight.

Palette

Art Terms

Painting Canvas Abstraction Monochrome Relief Avant-garde

Exhibitions

Techniques of Painting

1941

Large-Scale Modern Paintings

1947

Abstract Painting; Shapes of Things

1941

Iliazd and the Illustrated Book

1987