Antonio López, A Life in Search of Perfection
He is one of our most admired artists and the greatest exponent of Spanish realism, known for his pursuit of precise nuance and for the vitality that makes it possible for him to work on a project for decades. We invite you to take a look at the highlights of a life dedicated body and soul to art.
Broad horizons
Antonio López García was born in Tomelloso, Ciudad Real, on January 6th 1936, months before the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War. Despite the circumstances, he remembers his childhood as a happy time.
His hometown, located in the geographical centre of La Mancha, is a region of plains and vineyards, where his family makes a living by farming their land.
Every calling requires an opportunity
In the summer of 1949, his uncle, the painter Antonio López Torres, discovers that his nephew has more than just a technical ability to copy 19th-century prints.
Convincing his parents that their son’s future lies in something so unstable is no easy task. But Antonio becomes, at the age of 13, a student at the Academy of Fine Arts in Madrid.
Antonio y Carmen, 1956. Detail from the Art Book of the work Bodies and Flowers by ARTIKA.
The forging of a style
He sells his first drawing at the Casón del Buen Retiro and realises that he is on the right path. In 1957 he opens his first solo exhibition in Tomelloso.
The experiences of his childhood and adolescence become the raw material of his inspiration. They are works loaded with narrative force, which incorporate surrealist elements.
The city as protagonist
“He had the paint, but it wasn’t enough”. He marries María Moreno, also a painter, in 1961. Over the course of the following decade, his artistic vision would lean more and more towards the objective representation of the real world.
During this period, his paintings that feature the city of Madrid, with its impressive panoramic views, are particularly noteworthy.
Gran Vía de Madrid, 1974-1981.
Sharing and drawing
He started teaching at the San Fernando School of Fine Arts in 1964, which he did until he decided to devote himself exclusively to his own work. However, he has never completely abandoned his teaching.
Beyond producing portraits and sculptures, he became increasingly devoted to drawing, as reflected in several pieces depicting interior spaces in which his personal and creative life takes place.
Lavabo y espejo, 2011. Interior del baño, 1969 (photo from Antonio López’s website).
He also consolidated his practice of interrupting and resuming the creative process of each piece, a practice that can extend over a period of years.
The light of the real
His exhibitions in New York in the late 1960s bring him international fame, primarily through the rise of a realist trend in the United States.
He begins to make detailed studies of light and its infinite nuances. This particularity contributes decisively to establishing his style when it comes to capturing reality.
Rosas de Ávila, 2014. Detail from the Art Book of the work Bodies and Flowers by ARTIKA.
Art without borders
In 1974 he receives the Darmstadt City Prize for the sculpture Antonio y Mari and, in 1983, the Gold Medal for Merit in Fine Arts. In 1985 he receives the Prince of Asturias Award for the Arts.
El sol del membrillo (Dream of Light), a film directed by Víctor Erice, premieres in 1992. It reveals, as nobody had done until then, Antonio López’s creative process.
An artist who creates expectation
In 2006 he presents Madrid desde la torre de bomberos de Vallecas (Madrid from the Vallecas’ firemen station tower), his largest painting to date, and receives the Velázquez Award for the Visual Arts.
Madrid desde la torre de bomberos de Vallecas, 2006.
In 2010, his sculpture La mujer de Coslada (The Woman from Coslada) is unveiled in a public space, and in 2014, he delivers his portrait of the royal family, a painting to which he devoted 20 years of work.
La mujer de Coslada, 2010. Detail from the Art Book of the work Bodies and Flowers by ARTIKA.
His first art book, Bodies and Flowers, is published by ARTIKA in 2017. His capacity for work remains intact: in July 2021 he was seen in Madrid, painting views of the Puerta del Sol.
Antonio López remains faithful to the interests that drove him to create his first drawings: “Expanding my knowledge has been my life’s guiding principle”.
A unique edition dedicated to the great master of realism
- Bodies and Flowers offers a journey through sixty works, most of them life-size.
- Antonio López was involved in all phases of the project. Only 2998 copies of this artist’s book, now out of print, exist.
- It includes an Art Book, an exclusively designed slipcase and a giclée print that reproduces a numbered edition of the painting Rosas de Ávila.
