Antonio López García

It is impossible to describe Antonio López García simply as a painter in the “realist” school. His masterful paintings of the prosaic, familiar places of his world and of the family and friends comprising it reveal an unusual sensitivity to his subject. Through uncompromising study of his subjects, he has imbued the commonplace with a haunting and extraordinary character, seen in his exceptional depiction of light—at once brilliant and subdued, ethereal and fleeting, and palpable. His unrelenting examination and depiction of his subject means that he sometimes spends years to finish a single canvas. This penetrating approach, as well as his exceptional skill, has singled out López García as one of Spain’s most revered artists.

This exhibition of approximately sixty paintings, drawings, and sculpture is presented as a complement to the exhibition “El Greco to Velázquez: Art during the Reign of Philip III.” López García is in the lineage of artists to be examined in this historical exhibition, artists who introduced naturalism into Spanish art, from an attention to detail and the depiction of space in court portraiture, to the flourishing of still life, to the humanizing of saints.

See Boston Globe photos of the sculpture installation at the Huntington Entrance on April 1.