Galerie Stadler, Paris
Acquired directly from the above in 1965

Bern, Kunsthalle, 4 Maler: Tàpies, Alechinsky, Messagier, Moser, 1959, no. 12
Zurich, Kunsthaus, Antoni Tàpies, 1962, no. 40
Hanover, Kestner-Gesellschaft, Antonio Tàpies, 1962, no. 38
Paris, Galerie Stadler, Métaphysique de la matière, 1964, illustrated

Michel Tápié, Antoni Tàpies, Milan 1969, pl. 81, illustrated
Giuseppe Gatt, Antoni Tàpies. Opere 1946-1970, Rome 1971, pl. 105, illustrated
Pere Gimferrer, Tàpies i l'esperit català, Barcelona 1974, p. 126, pl. 148, illustrated, and p. 127, pl. 149, illustration of detail
Anna Agusti, Tàpies, The Complete Works: 1943-1960, Vol. I, Barcelona 1998, p. 308, no. 612, illustrated

Colour: The colours in the catalogue illustration are fairly accurate, although the tonality of the red is deeper and richer and the illustration fails to fully convey the textured surface in the original. Condition: This work is very good condition. There are several characteristic and stable drying cracks scattered throughout, which are inherent to the artist's choice of media and visible in the catalogue illustration. There are a few losses towards the centre of the right overturn edge, which are as well inherent to the artist's choice of media and visible in the catalogue illustration. Close inspection reveals a very fine line of cracking to the upper centre of the left overturn-edge. No restoration is apparent under ultraviolet light.
"In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective, qualified opinion. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

``First there are memories that come from my adolescence and early youth, shut up by the walls between which I lived throughout the years of war. The dramatic suffering of the adults and all the cruel fantasies of those of my own age that were abandoned to their own impulses ... seemed to inscribe themselves on the walls around me. The walls of the city which family tradition made me consider so much my own, were witnesses of the martyrdoms and inhuman sufferings inflicted on our people.'' (the artist cited in: Roland Penrose, Tàpies, London 1978, p. 59)

An extraordinary example from Antoni Tàpies' Wall series Red Relief No. LXIII immediately confronts the viewer with a sense of foreboding. The beautiful red relief stands proud off the canvas and is animated with thickly stratified undecipherable signs. Pierced through to the liquid under-layers of the warm earthly red impasto, Red Relief No. LXIII embodies Tàpies' material abstraction at its height. Set at eye level the relief reveals an array of potential metaphors and retains the mystery of what lies beyond it.

From 1957 Red Relief No. LXIII is an early testimony of Tàpies' uncompromising investigations on the materiality of painting. In 1954 he applied for the first time a mixture of powdered marble and glue to the canvas. With this impasto Tàpies achieved relief-quality surfaces with a great sense of 'material concreteness'. As Juan Eduardo Cirlot reflects: "The process of matter, considered as a receptacle of the spirit, which is inherent to all informalism, leads us back to alchemical symbolism. [...] Tàpies' paintings, created between 1956 and 1958, display strange images in which a series of almost regular discs or masses of matter are distributed, with a certain flaky softness, over a material background. There is barely any contrast in tone, and those masses appear to float in a kind of hazy movement, similar to that caused in a liquid by boiling" (Juan Eduardo Cirlot in: Exhibition Catalogue, Barcelona, Museu d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona, Antoni Tàpies. Retrospective, 2004, p. 90).

Although abstract in composition and non representational, these works strongly relate to matter and invite the viewer to experience them as ancient walls inscribed with mysterious symbols. Before Tàpies, Jean-Paul Sartre's collection of short stories Le Mur from 1939 set during the Spanish Civil War meditated on the meaning of walls and how these were used for executions and, hence, became records of war memories and the fragility of the human being. Similarly to Sartre's walls, Tàpies' surfaces are a metaphor for the vulnerability of man's existence. Pere Gimferrer elaborates on this aspect of Tapies' walls: ''What we are presented with by these remains of the destruction of matter is the allegory of our condition ... We know that this world is profoundly ours; presented to our perception by the dictates of some vast, obscure purpose, we recognise ourselves in it'' (Pere Gimferrer, Tapies and the Catalan Spirit, Barcelona 1986, p. 81).