Mortality is not a new subject for Antoni Tàpies: on several occasions, he has even remarked that he became an artist because of a serious illness he suffered when he was an adolescent. It is only over the past few years, however, that death has become a central theme in his work. Unlike the group of chiaroscuro pieces incorporating skull and shroud motifs he exhibited two years ago at New York’s PaceWildenstein gallery, the works (dating from 1994 to 1997) that appeared in his most recent show reflected a variety of approaches to the subject. Some of these canvases and objects seem to indicate