Antoni Clavé - Original Lithograph - For Alexander Pushkin's Queen of Spades Dimensions: 325 x 247 mm. 1946 Original lithograph of Antoni Clavé Edition: 300 The Queen of Spades. Translation by Prosper Mérimée. In Paris, Editions du Pré aux Clercs Antoni Clavé (1913 - 2005) Painter and Spanish sculptor, born in Barcelona in 1913, Antoni Clavé died in Saint-Tropez (Var) on August 30th, 2005. He settled down in this village on the edge of the Mediterranean in 1965. After he knew the house painter's rough life, he studied at the Art college of Barcelona. He first dedicated himself to graphics in the advertisement, to the illustration of books for children and to the decorative arts. In 1936, he took an active part in the Spanish civil war, in the republican ranks, and in 1939 he had to take refuge in France where he became interned. The same year he exhibited gouaches and drawings that he made in concentration camps. He came to live in Paris, where he was, in the first years, influenced by Vuillard and Bonnard, then impressed by Soutine. He met Picasso. In 1944 began for him a brilliant career as illustrator and decorator of theater in France and abroad. Clavé participated in uncountable collective exhibitions throughout the world and a very big number of personal exhibitions was dedicated to him (its first one in Paris, in 1945). He gave up the world of the spectacle in 1955, wishing to dedicate himself exclusively to the painting. The ''Warriors'', ''Knights'', ''Kings'', ''Queens'', monumental but fragile, hieratic and buffoons, appeared almost immediately. Mixture of painting, impasto, materials, collages, and prints. From backdrop without vividness tints, came into sight lively colors, brightness of red. He approached the sculpture and the compositions of big dimensions. During 50 years, his quite Hispanic exuberance, his imagination without limit and his inexhaustible vitality never stopped flowering.