Background

López García was born in Tomelloso, Spain, on January 6, 1936, just a few months before the onset of the Spanish Civil War. He is the eldest son of a married couple of well-to-do farmers.

Education

Antonio López García was expected to continue the family tradition as a farmer. But an early vocation for drawing caught the attention of his uncle Antonio Lopez Torres, a local painter of landscapes. He became López García's first teacher. In 1949 he moved to Madrid in order to prepare for admission to the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando. Between 1950 and 1955 he studied art at the academy, winning a number of prizes for his paintings. While studying, he developed friendships with Maria Moreno, Francisco Lopez Hernandez, Amalia Avia, and Isabel Quintanilla.

Postwar Madrid was isolated from the international arena of art and culture. All the information that López García obtained on contemporary art was found from library books at the school. He gradually became aware of Picasso and other great artists of that period.

In 1955, thanks to a received scholarship, López García had a chance to travel to Italy, where he first encountered Italian Renaissance painting. There he suffered a small disappointment in contemplating live the masterpieces that he only knew by reproductions, and that until that moment he revered.

Career

López García had his first individual exhibitions in 1957 and 1961 in Madrid, while working there as well as in his native town. During this period Antonio López shows an increasing interest in the representation of objects, regardless of their contained narrative load. He continued to create his works in the style of Magic Realism through the mid-1960s, but gradually, as he said, "the physical world gained more prestige in my eyes." Some of his relief sculptures conjured up fantastic episodes, such as The Apparition (1963).

He started to paint panoramic views of Madrid about 1960. His artworks from this period received recognition, first within Spain and later abroad. He had his shows at the Staempfli Gallery, New York, in 1965 and 1968. Antonio López García's most favourite subjects were also images of women, anonymous and humble objects of domestic surroundings, desolate spaces, images of his garden and landscape. He has been working on some of his paintings for more than twenty years. Some of them have remained unfinished.

In the 1960s and the 1970s, his prestige quietly grew. From 1965 and until 1969 he was a professor in charge of the Chair of colour preparatory in the School of Fine Arts of San Fernando.

In 1990 the artist was featured in the film El sol del membrillo, directed by Victor Erice and written by both. In 1993 the Reina Sofía Museum dedicated an anthological exhibition to the artist.

In 2008, the Boston Museum of Fine Arts dedicated a monographic exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. The exhibition included his two large bronze heads sculpted of his grandchildren, which were placed on the front lawn of the Museum of Fine Arts. In 2011 the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum and the Museum of Fine Arts in Bilbao organized his exhibitions with artworks of all stages, but mainly of their latest production.

Achievements

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  Antonio López García is deemed to be one of the most important representatives of hyperrealism in Europe. He is proficient in the traditional media of pencil drawing, oil painting on board, carved wood sculpture, and bas-relief in plaster. His work Madrid from Torres Blancas reached at an auction of Christie's of London the 1,918,000 £, the largest amount paid so far for a work of a living Spanish artist.
  
  The artist has won numerous awards. He has been awarded the gold medal from Castilla-La Mancha and the Community of Madrid, in 1986 and 1990, respectively. In 2006 López García was awarded the Velázquez Prize for Fine Arts.

Works

More photos

• painting

  • Sinforoso and Josefa

  • Woman (the Dream)

  • The Table

  • View of Madrid from Torres Blancas

  • Artists Working

  • Dead Girl

  • Toilet and Window

  • Grand Via

  • Gran Via De Agosto

  • Atocha

  • Greek Head and Blue Dress

  • Conejo Deshollado

  • Dos amantes (El beso)

  • Perfil de hombre

  • Mujer de Tomelloso (La Madre del artista)

  • Academia

  • Nochebuena

  • Mujer quemada (Burnt woman)

  • Autumn

  • Mujer sentada

  • Chica

  • Soaking clothes

  • Ventana al atardecer - window in the afternoon

  • Bodegón de las Afueras

  • La salmantina

  • Estudio de dos espaldas

  • Los melocotones y las rosas

  • Madrid Desde Torres Blancas

  • Perro muerto

  • Tomelloso

  • Josefina in the rocking chair

  • Street of mud

  • Carmencita en la cuna

  • Mujer encinta

  • Still life, bodegón

• sculpture

  • Mujer del Almanzora

  • Baby Head

Membership

In January 1993 Antonio López García became a member of the Madrid Royal Academy of San Fernando.

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  Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando , Spain

  January, 1993

Connections

Antonio López García married the painter María Moreno in 1961. The marriage produced two daughters: María in 1962 and Carmen in 1965.

Spouse:

María Moreno

Daughter:

María López García

Daughter:

Carmen López García

References

• Antonio López Published on the occasion of the artist’s landmark exhibition at the Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza in Madrid, this generous overview constitutes a self-portrait of a genuine icon of contemporary painting.
  2011
• Antonio López García: Drawings Including 200 colour plates and a moving text by the artist himself, this book stands as a powerful testimony to López García's astounding achievement.
  2013
• Antonio López García This book, published to accompany the first major exhibition of his art in the United States (in tandem with the monumental El Greco to Velázquez exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston), offers the first comprehensive overview in English of this extraordinary oeuvre.
  2008
• Antonio López García: Paintings and Sculpture Carefully overseen by López García in its production, this companion volume includes 200 full-colour reproductions of his works.
  2011
• Antonio Lopez Garcia Paintings, Sculptures and Drawings 1965-1986 Catalog from an exhibition at Marlborough Gallery New York: April 3-26, 1986 and Marlborough Fine Art, London: May 9-31, 1986.
  1986
• Antonio López García’s Everyday Urban Worlds: A Philosophy of Painting Antonio López García’s Everyday Urban Worlds: A Philosophy of Painting is the first book to give the famed Spanish artist the critical attention he deserves.
  2014