Fundació Tàpies: the Catalan artist’s bequest to Barcelona

Located in a former publishing house, the Fundació Tàpies celebrated its 30th anniversary in 2020.

The home of the Fundació Antoni Tàpies was inaugurated 30 years ago, on 5 June 1990. Since then it has developed a program of exhibitions and activities with two different objectives: to study and disseminate the work of Antoni Tàpies and to promote modern and contemporary works that help viewers to deepen their knowledge of art.

Although the Fundació opened its doors in June 1990, it was created earlier, in 1984, by the artist Antoni Tàpies himself, to promote the study and knowledge of modern and contemporary art. The institution is located in the heart of Barcelona's Eixample district in the head office of the former Montaner i Simon publishing house, designed by the modernista architect Lluís Domènech i Montaner, and restored and adapted by the architects Roser Amadó and Lluís Domènech Girbau.

A deeper understanding of art

The Fundació Antoni Tàpies has one of the most complete collections of the work of Tàpies, consisting mainly of donations by Antoni and Teresa Tàpies. The aim of the foundation is to encourage collaborations with experts in different fields of learning in order to enable a deeper understanding of contemporary art and culture. The foundation combines temporary exhibitions, symposia, conferences, and film cycles with a series of publications on the activities. It also stages periodic exhibitions of Antoni Tàpies' work.

The site is also home to the Fundació Antoni Tàpies Library, which is located in the former Montaner i Simon warehouse and still has its original shelves. The library specializes in modern and contemporary art, and houses the most extensive archive of Tàpies' work, along with collections on Asian and pre-Columbian arts and culture, and art from Africa and Oceania.

"The Foundation has one of the most complete collections of Tàpies' work"

Current exhibitions

The Foundation currently has two temporary exhibitions. The exhibition entitled "Tàpies at 30" focuses on the decade between 1953 and 1963, when Antoni Tàpies was in his thirties. During those years Tàpies’ art reached maturity with the creation of the so-called materials paintings.

The other exhibition by the interdisciplinary artist Aziz Hazara is called "The restless echos of tomorrow" and was created in collaboration with the Hans Nefkens Foundation.

Monographic museums

Barcelona is one of the rare cities in the world with a number of monographic artistic institutions created by artists themselves, of which the Fundació Tàpies is just one. Barcelona’s monographic museums are home work by some of the greatest artists of the 20th century: Picasso, Miró, Tàpies, and Dalí.

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