Antonio López García (born 6 January 1936) is a Spanish
painter
Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface (called the "matrix" or "support"). The medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush, but other implements, such as knives, sponges, and ai ...
and
sculptor
Sculpture is the branch of the visual arts that operates in three dimensions. Sculpture is the three-dimensional art work which is physically presented in the dimensions of height, width and depth. It is one of the plastic arts. Durable sc ...
, known for his
realistic style. He is criticized by some modern artists for what they consider neo-academism, but has been praised by leading art critics, such as
Robert Hughes, who considered him "the greatest realist artist alive" in 1986. His style sometimes is deemed
hyperrealistic
Jean Baudrillard ( , , ; 27 July 1929 – 6 March 2007) was a French sociologist, philosopher and poet with interest in cultural studies. He is best known for his analyses of media, contemporary culture, and technological communication, as wel ...
. His painting was the subject of the film ''
El Sol del Membrillo'', by
Victor Erice
The name Victor or Viktor may refer to:
* Victor (name), including a list of people with the given name, mononym, or surname
Arts and entertainment
Film
* ''Victor'' (1951 film), a French drama film
* ''Victor'' (1993 film), a French shor ...
, in 1992.
Early life
Antonio López was born on 6 January 1936 in
Tomelloso
Tomelloso () is a municipality in the province of Ciudad Real, Castile-La Mancha, Spain. It has a population of 33,548 (2005).
Main sights
*Posada de los Portales (late 17th century)
*Town Hall, rebuilt in 1904
*Church of the ''Asunción de Nuest ...
,
Ciudad Real
Ciudad Real (, ; en, "Royal City") is a municipality of Spain located in the autonomous community of Castile–La Mancha, capital of the province of Ciudad Real. It is the 5th most populated municipality in the region.
History
It was founde ...
, a few months before the beginning of the
Spanish Civil War
The Spanish Civil War ( es, Guerra Civil Española)) or The Revolution ( es, La Revolución, link=no) among Nationalists, the Fourth Carlist War ( es, Cuarta Guerra Carlista, link=no) among Carlists, and The Rebellion ( es, La Rebelión, lin ...
. It first appeared that Antonio would continue in the family tradition as a farmer, but an early facility for drawing caught the attention of his uncle Antonio López Torres, a local painter of
landscapes
A landscape is the visible features of an area of Terrestrial ecoregion, land, its landforms, and how they integrate with Nature, natural or man-made features, often considered in terms of their aesthetic appeal.''New Oxford American Dictionar ...
, who gave him his first lessons. In 1949 he moved to Madrid in order to study for entrance to the competitive
Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando
The Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando (RABASF; ), located on the Calle de Alcalá in the heart of Madrid, currently functions as a museum and gallery. A public law corporation, it is integrated together with other Spanish royal acad ...
.
Postwar period
Between 1950 and 1955 he studied art at the
Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando
The Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando (RABASF; ), located on the Calle de Alcalá in the heart of Madrid, currently functions as a museum and gallery. A public law corporation, it is integrated together with other Spanish royal acad ...
, winning a number of prizes. While at the school he developed a friendship with
María Moreno—also a painter—whom he would marry in 1961. He also formed friendships with
Francisco López Hernández,
Amalia Avia
Amalia may refer to:
People
*Amalia (given name), feminine given name (includes a list of people so named)
*Princess Amalia (disambiguation), several princesses with this name
Films and television series
* ''Amalia'' (1914 film), the first ...
, and
Isabel Quintanilla
Isabel Quintanilla (1938 – 24 October 2017) was a Spanish visual artist belonging to the new Spanish realism movement. Her paintings usually portray still life, describing simple objects and views from every day life, as well as landscape paint ...
. Out of this nucleus a realist group, the New Spanish Realists, was formed in Madrid. López García became friends with
Jack Chambers, a
Canadian
Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of ...
studying in Madrid. Although Chambers did not belong to the New Spanish Realists, parallels to their style can be found in his work created in Canada in the late 1960s.
Madrid of the postwar period was isolated from the international panorama of art and culture. All the information that López García accessed on contemporary art was derived from library books at the school; he gradually became aware of
Picasso
Pablo Ruiz Picasso (25 October 1881 – 8 April 1973) was a Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist and Scenic design, theatre designer who spent most of his adult life in France. One of the most influential artists of the 20th ce ...
and other great artists of the period.
In 1955, a scholarship allowed him to travel to
Italy
Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical re ...
with Francisco López and study Italian painting from the
Renaissance
The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history marking the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and covering the 15th and 16th centuries, characterized by an effort to revive and surpass ideas ...
. During this period he began to reevaluate Spanish painting in the
Prado
The Prado Museum ( ; ), officially known as Museo Nacional del Prado, is the main Spanish national art museum
An art museum or art gallery is a building or space for the display of art, usually from the museum's own collection. It migh ...
, especially
Velázquez, a constant reference.
Varieties of realism
By 1957 his work had registered a certain
surreal
Surreal may refer to:
*Anything related to or characteristic of Surrealism, a movement in philosophy and art
* "Surreal" (song), a 2000 song by Ayumi Hamasaki
* ''Surreal'' (album), an album by Man Raze
*Surreal humour, a common aspect of humor
...
quality. Figures and objects appear to float in space and his pictures are populated by images removed from their contexts. The fantastic vein remains at least until 1964.
During this period Antonio López shows an increasing interest in the representation of objects, independent of their contained narrative load.
Magic Realism continued to inform his work through the mid-1960s, but gradually, as he said, "the physical world gained more prestige in my eyes."
In fact he had never abandoned it. The 1959 oil ''Francisco Carretero and A. López García Talking'', like many portraits and townscapes of this period, is devoid of surrealistic devices. So are ''Autumn'' (1961) and ''The Sea'' (1961–70). Some of his relief sculptures conjure fantastic episodes, such as ''The Apparition'' (1963), in which a child hovers mid-air against a wall, gliding toward an open door. There are many affinities with the Tuscan Renaissance in his work in three dimensions. The ethereal ''Head of Carmencita'' (1965–68), for example, might at first glance be taken for a quattrocento Florentine bronze by Desiderio da Settignano.
García's painting also reverberates with the art of the past. ''The Grapevine'' (1960) evokes
Tiepolo
Giovanni Battista Tiepolo ( , ; March 5, 1696 – March 27, 1770), also known as Giambattista (or Gianbattista) Tiepolo, was an Italian painter and printmaker from the Republic of Venice who painted in the Rococo style, considered an import ...
's sunlight, ''The Quince Tree'' (1962)
Chardin Chardin is a French surname. Notable people with the surname include:
* Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin, (1699–1779), French painter noted for his still life works
* Jean Chardin, (1643–1713), French jeweller and traveller, author of ''The Trave ...
's dusky murk, and other paintings echo Old Masters from
Dürer to
Degas
Edgar Degas (, ; born Hilaire-Germain-Edgar De Gas, ; 19 July 183427 September 1917) was a French Impressionist artist famous for his pastel drawings and oil paintings.
Degas also produced bronze sculptures, prints and drawings. Degas is espec ...
.
The beauty of López's work begins with an appreciation of his craft. Paintings such as ''The Sideboard'' (1965–66), or the atmospheric views of Madrid from the 1970s, show an acute perception and understanding of the beauty of the objects he portrays.
Though López is devoted to the mundane—he depicts humble people, buildings, plants, and cluttered interiors—his portrayal of these subjects is compelling and beautiful. Starkly lit studies of his studio, bathroom, and the red brick wall in his backyard underscore an interest in prosaic subject matter. His deftness brings attention to these simple forms, encouraging the viewer to re-examine the presence of ordinary objects.
He began to paint panoramic views of Madrid about 1960. His work from this period attracted recognition, first within Spain—in 1961 he had his first solo show in Madrid—and later, in 1965 and 1968, at the Staempfli Gallery in
New York
New York most commonly refers to:
* New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York
* New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States
New York may also refer to:
Film and television
* '' ...
. López faithfully adhered to familiar subjects: images of women, anonymous and humble objects of domestic surroundings, desolate spaces, images of his garden and landscape. The pictures are sometimes worked on for more than twenty years, some of them remaining unfinished.
As the artist explains, "the pictorial nucleus begins to grow and you work until the whole surface has an expressive intensity equivalent to what you have before you, converted into a pictorial reality."
He is a versatile realist, proficient in the traditional media of pencil drawing, oil painting on board, carved wood sculpture, and
bas relief
Relief is a sculptural method in which the sculpted pieces are bonded to a solid background of the same material. The term ''relief'' is from the Latin verb ''relevo'', to raise. To create a sculpture in relief is to give the impression that the ...
in plaster.
Exhibitions
Because he is not prolific, López has had only a handful of one-artist shows. His first individual show was held at the
Ateneo de Madrid
The Ateneo de Madrid ("Athenæum of Madrid") is a private cultural institution located in the capital of Spain that was founded in 1835. Its full name is ''Ateneo Científico, Literario y Artístico de Madrid'' ("Scientific, Literary and Artistic ...
in 1957. Three have been in New York: two in the 1960s and one, in 1986, at his current representative, the
Marlborough Gallery
Marlborough Fine Art was founded in London in 1946 by Frank Lloyd and Harry Fischer. In 1963, a gallery was opened as Marlborough-Gerson in Manhattan, New York, at the Fuller Building on Madison Avenue and 57th Street, which later relocated in ...
. In 2008 he was featured in a solo exhibition at the
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
The Museum of Fine Arts (often abbreviated as MFA Boston or MFA) is an art museum in Boston, Massachusetts. It is the 20th-largest art museum in the world, measured by public gallery area. It contains 8,161 paintings and more than 450,000 works ...
. The exhibition included the two enormous bronze heads he sculpted of his grandchildren, which were placed on the front lawn of the Museum of Fine Arts. His work is in several major U.S. museum collections.
Recognition and influence
During most of his career, Antonio López García worked amidst an artistic culture dominated first by abstraction and later by conceptual currents. In the 1960s and the 1970s, his prestige quietly grew. It is possible to establish links between his work and the new European figurative tendencies or the American
hyperrealism
Jean Baudrillard ( , , ; 27 July 1929 – 6 March 2007) was a French sociologist, philosopher and poet with interest in cultural studies. He is best known for his analyses of media, contemporary culture, and technological communication, as w ...
.
López has won numerous awards. After winning the III National Art Contest in his final year of art school, he was awarded a trip to Italy by the Spanish Ministry of Education, in order to study the works of Renaissance masters. He has also been awarded the Medalla de Oro from Castilla-La Mancha and the Community of Madrid, in 1986 and 1990, respectively. In 2004, López was inducted as an honorary member of the Academy of Arts and Letters in New York, and in 2006 he was awarded the Velázquez Prize for Fine Arts.
[http://www.mfa.org/dynamic/sub/ctr_link_url_6422.pdf]
Films
López is featured in an award-winning 1992 film, ''
El Sol del Membrillo'', directed by
Victor Erice
The name Victor or Viktor may refer to:
* Victor (name), including a list of people with the given name, mononym, or surname
Arts and entertainment
Film
* ''Victor'' (1951 film), a French drama film
* ''Victor'' (1993 film), a French shor ...
and written by both. The film, which portrays López's struggles to paint, and then draw, a small
quince tree
The quince (; ''Cydonia oblonga'') is the sole member of the genus ''Cydonia'' in the Malinae subtribe (which also contains apples and pears, among other fruits) of the Rosaceae family (biology), family. It is a deciduous tree that bears hard ...
growing in the backyard of his studio, gives considerable attention to his almost fanatically exacting working methods.
Public Collections
*
Baltimore Museum of Art
The Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA) in Baltimore, Maryland, United States, is an art museum that was founded in 1914. The BMA's collection of 95,000 objects encompasses more than 1,000 works by Henri Matisse anchored by the Cone Collection of ...
*
Bilbao Fine Arts Museum
The Bilbao Fine Arts Museum (Spanish: ''Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao'', Basque: ''Bilboko Arte Ederren Museoa'') is an art museum located in the city of Bilbao, Spain. The building of the museum is located entirely inside the city's Doña Casild ...
*
Cleveland Museum of Art
The Cleveland Museum of Art (CMA) is an art museum in Cleveland, Ohio, located in the Wade Park District, in the University Circle neighborhood on the city's east side. Internationally renowned for its substantial holdings of Asian and Egyptian ...
*
Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University
Fogg may refer to:
* Fogg (surname), including a list of people with the name
* Fogg Art Museum, at Harvard University
* Fogg Dam in Humpty Doo, Northern Territory, Australia
* Hume-Fogg High School
Hume-Fogg Academic Magnet High School is a ...
,
Cambridge, Massachusetts
Cambridge ( ) is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. As part of the Boston metropolitan area, the cities population of the 2020 U.S. census was 118,403, making it the fourth most populous city in the state, behind Boston, ...
*
Kunsthalle Hamburg
The Hamburger Kunsthalle is the art museum of the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg, Germany. It is one of the largest art museums in the country. The museum consists of three connected buildings, dating from 1869 (main building), 1921 (Kuppelsaa ...
*
Musée National d’Art Moderne, Centre Pompidou,
Paris
Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...
*
Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía
The ''Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía'' ("Queen Sofía National Museum Art Centre"; MNCARS) is Spain's national museum of 20th-century art. The museum was officially inaugurated on September 10, 1992, and is named for Queen Sofía. It ...
,
Madrid
Madrid ( , ) is the capital and most populous city of Spain. The city has almost 3.4 million inhabitants and a metropolitan area population of approximately 6.7 million. It is the second-largest city in the European Union (EU), and ...
*
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
The Museum of Fine Arts (often abbreviated as MFA Boston or MFA) is an art museum in Boston, Massachusetts. It is the 20th-largest art museum in the world, measured by public gallery area. It contains 8,161 paintings and more than 450,000 works ...
*
Museum of Modern Art
The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues.
It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, and is often identified as one of ...
,
New York
New York most commonly refers to:
* New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York
* New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States
New York may also refer to:
Film and television
* '' ...
*
Nagasaki Prefectural Art Museum
opened in Nagasaki, Nagasaki Prefecture, Japan, in 2005. The collection comprises artworks relating to Nagasaki as well as works of Spanish art collected by , special envoy to Spain during the Second World War. Alongside the Nagasaki Museum of ...
See also
*
Hyperrealism (visual arts)
Hyperrealism is a genre of painting and sculpture resembling a high-resolution photograph. Hyperrealism is considered an advancement of photorealism by the methods used to create the resulting paintings or sculptures. The term is primarily app ...
*
Magic Realism
Notes
References
*Antonio López García by
Francisco Calvo Serraller
Francisco Calvo Serraller (19 April 1948 – 16 November 2018) was a Spanish art historian.
Life
He was born in 1948 in Madrid.
Career
Calvo Serraller completed his Doctorate in Philosophy and Literature specializing in History at the Complute ...
, Edward J. Sullivan, and Michael Brenson, Rizzoli, pp. 358
*Quotes are from Michael Brenson's interview with the artist in the Rizzoli monograph, and from Antonio López García, "Una España Velazqueña", Blanco y Negro (Sunday magazine section of ABC, Madrid) 28 January 1990, pp. XIX-XX
*Jonathan Brown, The Golden Age of Spanish Painting, Yale University Press, 1991, p. 310.
Bibliography
*Nieve, Francisco, ''Antonio López García'', Rizzoli International, 1986
*Rizzoli, Antonio ''López García'', Rizzoli International, 1990
*Brutvan, Cheryl, ''Antonio Lopez Garcia'', MFA Publications, 2008
*
Serraller, Francisco Calvo, ''Antonio López García: Drawings'', D.A.P./Distributed Art Publishers, Inc., 2010. .
External links
Biographical Timeline of Antonio Lopez Garcia's LifeAntonio López García at ArtnetAntonio Lopez Garcia at Galeria Marlborough, Madrid includes photographs of many of his works.
*
Antonio López García objects from the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
Video-Interview: Antonio López García. 2009, Madrid.English Subtitles.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lopez Garcia, Antonio
1936 births
Living people
People from the Province of Ciudad Real
20th-century Spanish painters
20th-century Spanish male artists
Spanish male painters
21st-century Spanish painters
Spanish sculptors
Spanish male sculptors
Realist painters
20th-century sculptors
Cityscape artists
21st-century Spanish male artists