Antonio Lopez Garcia

Antonio Lopez Garcia was born in Spain in 1936, a few months before the Spanish Civil war. He is most famous for his paintings and sculptures. Although he was given the opportunity as a child to carry on the family tradition as a farmer, an early liking for drawing caught his uncle's attention. His uncle was the local painter of landscapes, and so gave Lopez Garcia some of his first art lessons. In 1949 he moved to Madrid to try to get into the competitive Real Academia de Belles Artes de San Fernando. One of Lopez Garcia's many inspirations were Picasso, and after getting the opportunity to travel to Italy, he studied Italian paintings from the Renaissance period; it is believed that these styles are what inspired his own.

In 1957, a lot of Lopez Garcia's works had surreal elements within them. They contained figures and objects that appeared to float in space, as well as images removed from context. This surrealism remained in his works until about 1964. During the mid 1960s, Lopez Garcia started to add more elements of 'magic realism' in his works. 'Magic realism' is a genre where magical or unnatural elements are a part of the natural, realistic environment. An example of the use of this genre is Lopez Garcia's 'The Apparition' (1963), where a child is hovering mid-air against a wall, gliding towards an open door. Lopez Garcia started to paint panoramic views of Madrid. He worked on these paintings for many years, however some of his works were never finished.

The main mediums that Lopez Garcia uses include: pencil drawing, oil painting on board, carved wood sculpture and bas relief in plaster ('relief' meaning 'to raise'; it is giving the impression that that the sculpted material has been raised above the ground). Focusing mainly on his pencil drawings ('Mary's Hands'), he records tone by using many different grades of pencil to portray the contrast between the darkest greys and the 
whites. The use of pencil gives the drawing a grainy texture that, from far away, makes the image look softer. He has not used hard lines to represent the outline of the picture, but has used the background and the light and dark contrast to convey its shape and form.

Antonio Lopez Garcia

'Mary's Hands' (c.1964)

Pencil on paper

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