Antoni Tapies
(Extracted from Fundacio Antoni Tapies official site)

Antoni Tapies was born in Barcelona in 1923 into a cultured, middle-class, Catalan nationalist family who, since the 19th century, had been part of a publishing and book-selling tradition that awoke an early love of books and reading in him.

That inclination was strengthened over a long convalescence from a lung disease, during which he began his first experiments with art. He spent an increasing amount of time on drawing and painting and ended up abandoning his law studies to devote himself to them fully. By the forties he was already exhibiting his works, which were outstanding on the art scene of the time.