Antonì Clavé

(1913 – 2005)

The first time that Planque met Antonì Clavé he felt a strong sympathy for the Catalan artist. He was comfortable in his presence and was attracted to his personality, genuine, generous and anxious. Moreover, he admired Clavé’s professionalism, his healthy, orderly life-style. The artist taught him etching. For his part, Planque encouraged Clavé to persevere when assailed with self-doubt and he sought repeatedly to find buyers for his work by organizing exhibitions for him, in particular in Basel and Zurich. Though he sometimes criticized Clavé’s work for tending to be too closely connected to strictly local traditions, he nevertheless acknowledged that it was the artist’s loyalty to his roots that gave his art its power and force of conviction. Over the years Planque acquired a nocturnal canvas by Clavé, Black Fish, and a large tapestry. At each New Year’s his friend would send him a card in the form of a delicate composition of collages, frottages, prints from objects, bearing witness to the ongoing brotherly friendship between the two men.