20^th Century Spanish

After training at the School of Fine Arts of Barcelona under José Mongrel (1870-1937), Félix Mestres (1872-1933) y Ángel Ferrant (1890-1961), Clavé started working in the field of advertising and film design (CINAES, Metro Goldwyn Mayer), stage design and mural painting. At the end of the Spanish Civil War he settled in Paris, where he began creating lithographs and stage designs. There he met Pablo Picasso (1881-1973), who would exert a critical influence on the later development of his work.

In 1954 Clavé gave up illustration to devote himself fulltime to painting and printmaking. His work was hugely indebted to his ongoing research into materials. In 1934 he had already started to make collages and in 1965 he started to explore etchings. For him matter, medium and language made up a single whole, which is why and engraving played such a critical role in his practice.

In his early phase the artist developed an intimate style of painting influenced by Édouard Vuillard (1868-1940) and Pierre Bonnard (1867-1947), from which he evolved towards an elegant form of abstraction. He used a limited, restrained palette dominated by blacks, reds, blues and earthy tones. In the 1980s Clavé created a body of work under the generic title A don Pablo in tribute to Picasso.

His work has earned widespread international recognition. In 1948 he obtained the New York Hallmark Award; in 1954 the David Bright Award at the Venice Biennale; and in 1975 a prize at the Tokyo International Biennial. These distinctions contrasted with the scant attention paid to Clavé in Spain, until the organisation of a solo show in 1956 at Galería Gaspar. Afterwards, he gained well-deserved prestige that led to his exhibition at the Spanish Pavilion in the 1984 Venice Biennale as Spain’s sole representative. In 1986 he took part in a touring exhibition to four Japanese museums. In 1994 the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía organised a survey show of his life’s work, which was followed in 1999 by another one at Centro Cultural Conde Duque, also in Madrid.