Antonio Lopez Garcia

b. 1936

Antonio López García is the eldest son of a married couple of well-to-do farmers in the Castilian town of Tomelloso, La Mancha, and his house was located on Domecq Street. His early vocation for drawing, as well as the influence of his uncle, the painter Antonio López Torres, made up his decision to devote himself to painting. In 1949 he moved to Madrid to prepare for admission to the Academy of Fine Arts in San Fernando, where he coincided with various artists such as Enrique Gran, Amalia Avia, and Lucio Muñoz, with whom he formed what has come to be called the Madrid School. He remained in the academy between 1950 and 1955. In 1955, thanks to a scholarship, he traveled to Italy, where he first encountered Italian Renaissance painting. He thus suffered a small disappointment in contemplating live the masterpieces that he only knew by reproductions, and that until that moment he venerated. He began to revalue classical Spanish painting, which he knew so well, thanks to frequent visits to the Prado Museum, especially Diego Velázquez. After completing his studies, he made his first individual exhibitions in 1957 and 1961 in Madrid, while working in this city as well as in the town where he was born. In 1961 he married the painter María Moreno, a union from which two daughters were born: María in 1962 and Carmen in 1965. From this last year and until 1969 he was professor in charge of the Chair of color preparatory in the School of Fine Arts of San Fernando. In 1990 the film director Victor Erice filmed El sol del membrillo, a film in which the artist's creative process is collected while painting a quince-keeper from the patio of his house. In January 1993 he was appointed member of the Madrid Royal Academy of San Fernando and in that same year, the Reina Sofía Museum dedicated an anthological exhibition. In 2008, the Boston Museum of Fine Arts dedicated a monographic exhibition.1 In addition, 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.2 In 2011 the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum and the Museum of Fine Arts in Bilbao dedicated temporary exhibitions with works of all stages, but mostly of their latest production.