Born into a Catalan nationalist and liberal family. During convalescence at eighteen caused by tuberculosis was interested in music and literature and discovered his vocation for drawing and painting. He combined his law studies with painting until he decided in 1946 to leave college and pursue painting after a short time in the Academy of Nolasc Valls, so that, to a large extent, it can be considered a self-taught painter. In 1948 he founded the group Dau al Set, inspired by Surrealism and Dada, along with Joan Brossa, Modest Cuixart, Joan-Josep Tharrats, Joan Ponç, Arnau Puig and Juan Eduardo Cirlot. Tàpies soon became one of the greatest exponents of informality and material painting; In this sense, the use of recycled materials or waste materials that were not integrated to the artistic tradition as marble dust, ropes, paper, pieces of furniture or powder, laid the foundation of a new conception of art. In his first solo exhibition in Laietanes Galeries de Barcelona 1949 was followed by others as important as those held in Chicago (1953), New York (1953) and Paris (1956), giving him known before his show at the Venice Biennale and the first prize in 1958 at Carnegie consecrate internationally. Among the many distinctions that mark his career include the Wolf Prize in Arts (1981), the Gold Medal of the Generalitat de Catalunya (1983) and Prince of Asturias Award for the Arts in 1990, the which opened the door the Antoni Tàpies Foundation created to promote contemporary art. Set designer, book illustrator, poster ..., apart from painting Antoni Tàpies has outstanding work as a thinker of art.He died in February 2012