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First activity in the series of conversations with artists organised within the framework of the exhibition Masaveu Collection. Twentieth-Century Spanish Art: From Picasso to Barceló.

At this event, the exhibition curator María Dolores Jiménez-Blanco will converse with Antonio López, one of the leading figures of contemporary Spanish realism. His work is on display in the “Realism” section of the show.

All lectures take place at 7.15 pm in the María Cristina Masaveu Auditorium.

IMPORTANT: Free admission on a first come, first served basis.  Tickets (one per person) can be collected at the Foundation’s ticket office from one hour before the start of the lecture. One third of the tickets will be available for booking through the  website from 7 DAYS before the event. For any queries, please contact infomadrid@fmcmp.com

BIOGRAPHICAL DETAILS

Antonio López (Tomelloso, Ciudad Real, 1936) began his artistic training with his uncle, the painter Antonio López Torres, and completed his painting studies at the Escuela de Bellas Artes de San Fernando in Madrid between 1950 and 1955. In the late 1950s, various grants and prizes enabled him to extend his training with trips to Italy and Greece, and those experiences would have a decisive impact on his artistic development. Following a first period marked by the influences of cubism and surrealism, in the 1960s he consolidated an increasingly objective language focused on portraits, interiors, still lifes and urban landscapes, all fields in which he has become a seminal figure in contemporary realism. At the same time, he produced a significant body of sculptures.

His work has been shown at numerous individual and group exhibitions in Spain and abroad, earning great international acclaim since the 1960s. He has also represented Spain at major cultural events, such as Europalia 85. In 1990 the film director Víctor Erice made a documentary about him entitled El sol del membrillo [The Dream of Light], which offers a fascinating insight into the artist’s creative process and his work El membrillero [The Quince Tree], featured in this exhibition. Institutions like the Museo Reina Sofía, the Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza and the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston have curated exhibitions of his work, while various venues in Europe and Asia have hosted retrospectives.

He is the author of major public assignments and monumental pieces, and the leading public and private collections hold his works. During the course of his career, he has received some of the most important artistic distinctions, including the Prince of Asturias Award for the Arts (1985) and the Velázquez Award for the Plastic Arts (2006). He lives and works in Madrid.