Through the Eye: a Master’s Influence on Contemporary Painting
Seattle exhibition traces the aesthetic impact of Antonio López García on artists in Spain and the US
Often hailed as “the greatest realist artist alive,” the impact that master painter Antonio López García has had on realist art today is undeniable. Beneath the man’s mild-mannered warmth and humble charm, exists a real tour-de-force. Artists all over the world have sensed it in his work.
The international group exhibition Atravesando El Ojo (Through the Eye) at the Figure Ground Art Gallery in Seattle (Oct 5 — Nov 30, 2023) traces López’s aesthetic influence on artists in both Spain and the US, many of whom have studied with the master. While the artists in this show have been intensely impacted by his way of seeing, each has taken what they learned from López and applied their own eye to create a vision uniquely their own.
On display is work by Jorge Abbad (Spain), Rocío Cano (Spain), Larine Chung (USA), Adam Cohn (UK/Israel), Irene Cuadrado (Spain), Dean Fisher (USA), Zoey Frank (USA), Christopher Gallego (USA), Paco LaFarga (Spain), Carmen Mansilla (Spain), Eduardo Millán Sañudo (Spain), Josephine Sheridan Robinson (USA), Peter Van Dyck (USA), and Nacho Vergara (Spain).
The exhibition has been a dream for a decade now, as artists Dean Fisher and Christopher Gallego considered putting together a show before Fisher proposed the idea to Figure Ground Art Gallery owner Brett Holverstott and myself in NYC last summer. All three of us have a love for López’s work; Fisher and his wife Josephine Sheridan Robinson took a workshop with him in 2018, and I have written about his work in the past.
It was serendipitous when artist Nacho Vergara walked into the gallery and talked about a similar exhibition he had planned, yet cancelled due to the pandemic. Vergara lives in Madrid, studied with López, and knew many other artists in Spain who had also studied with the master. A plan was hatched.
At age 87, López has influenced many over his long career. He graduated from Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando in 1955. The academy is one of the oldest artistic institutions in Madrid, established in 1752, and boasts other notable alumni such as Salvador Dalí, Pablo Picasso, Remedios Varo, and Oscar de la Renta.
While studying there in the 50’s, López became part of an informal group now known as the New Spanish Realists, which includes artists Isabella Quintanilla, Francisco López Hernández, Amalia Avia, and López’s wife María Moreno. Largely isolated in Francoist Spain after WWII, the group was forming at a time when abstract art was all the rage in the West.
In the 19th century, photography liberated artists from having to dutifully reproduce images of the world around them. The ‘art for art’s sake’ movement sprung up in Europe, with artists starting to expand the boundaries of what could be put on a canvas, asking questions like: what would an emotion look like? It was an exciting time; if art was independent from visual references in the real world, it could be anything.
This radical shift towards abstraction was seen as a threat to the Nazis and their efforts to exert complete social control. Abstract art was labeled as “degenerate,” and artists were persecuted under the Third Reich. As the Nazis advanced across Europe, avant-garde artists had to move, and so the center of the art world shifted in the 40’s from Paris to New York. Abstract Expressionism was born in a vibrant art scene in the free world of the Allies and became the dominant art form.
Under the Nazi regime, Socialist Realism was mandatory. Artists had to create patriotic images of the German ‘volk’ in a traditional style. In the postwar era, realist painters across the world were written off as irrelevant. The generally-held belief was that realism had nothing new to say, there were no more boundaries to break, and that it came dangerously close to Socialist Realism. The New Spanish Realists were largely ignored.
After graduating from the academy, López’s work in the late 50’s and early 60’s took on a surrealist or magical realist tinge, while portraying the urban and domestic scenes of our everyday lives. The scenes are dirty, gritty, and put us viewers at ill ease. Figures float in space.
About this painting, artist Roberto Rosenman wrote: “Lopez has divided this composition into three spatial planes, each occupied by a figure[…] These three spatial planes take on the significance of metaphysical states when they are paralleled with the three planes of reality in the work: the real, supernatural, and the dream world.”
Lopez’s paintings were realist; they portrayed things that exist in the real world, but his work looked nothing like Socialist Realism. There are no idyllic scenes of the ‘volk.’
While still exploring surrealism in the early 60’s, López started to cement his signature style and subject matter, remarking that “the physical world gained more prestige in my eyes.” He moved away from fantastical narrative scenes and began painting women in domestic spaces, panoramic cityscapes of Madrid empty of people, and humble objects found around the house, like the bathroom sink.
It is just a sink. We see this everyday. It is a banal object, and yet, it is imbued with a freshness we do not normally see. The image is a mashup of two perspectives: first we follow the lines of the tiles on the wall and look intently down at the sink; then we move our head and see the mirror from a new perspective. The line of the tiles breaks and changes as we do so, and overlaps the towel hanging on the wall. The tiles on the wall behind us are reflected in the vampire mirror - if we were standing there we would see our own reflection. López has intentionally left us out, for if we were in that mirror, the image would carry a narrative about us and no longer be about the banal beauty of the white bathroom.
López slowly gained recognition in the 60’s and 70’s. In the 80’s he was picked up by the Marlborough Gallery in NYC, and that’s when American artists started learning about his work. In 2008, he had a solo show at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Fisher was there: “Antonio gave a talk on the opening night of the exhibition. The auditorium was packed with people and there was a long-standing ovation when he entered. Antonio gently and humbly asked everyone to sit down and the first words to leave his mouth were, ‘All I have ever wanted to do is paint what is in my heart.’ Needless to say, this was very emotional for many of us (I still get choked up)! It’s so rare to hear an artist of this stature speak about her or his art in such simple and human terms.”
American artist Christopher Gallego saw López’s work for the first time as a student in the 90’s and it made a big impact on him. He saw that López was doing the same thing he was trying to do. Gallego states, “Seeing López’s work gave me the freedom and confidence to paint anything. López paints unexpected things, which become beautiful, and he is passionate about it.” It validated his own work.
Gallego’s father was a Spaniard, and with Spanish roots Gallego feels that there is something familiar in López’s empty interiors depicted in paint. There is an intense level of observation. “His work demonstrates that rare combination of power and sensitivity and that any subject can be transformed into art.”
Artist Paco LaFarga states it even more poetically: “I was struck by his way of representing something in a very real way that had nothing to do with a hyper-realistic or photographic conception, something very deep, that moves and scratches you inside, that leaves a feeling of loneliness, of beautiful emptiness.”
The theme of “an intense level of observation” was common when speaking to artists participating in the exhibition Atravesando El Ojo. Nacho Vergara states that “When I was in high school I saw a drawing of his in an art history book and I was fascinated. At that moment the detail and the sensation of hyperrealism caught my attention. Little by little I have come to understand that his work has nothing to do with hyperrealism.”
American artist Peter Van Dyck is struck by what seems to be lenses of analysis and observation in López’s work, mapped on top of one another. He explains that López paints space in a 3D manner, through the lenses of structure and light, as opposed to what many artists do, which is simply to paint the photographic 2D of what our eye sees, or the ‘skin’ of the material world. When you start to observe without the photographic logic/skin, objects form from the center like a flower blooming, and you get a more profound sense of the characteristics of the object. “This allows for the poetic reconstruction of the world. That’s what painting is for.”
Van Dyck goes on to say that “López can turn his gaze on anything and redeem its banality.” Although he has never studied with López, from him Van Dyck learned to be ruthless with the 2D surface. Like a poet, he seeks to phrase the shapes on the picture plane, compelling them, which illuminates his perception of the world to reveal more. He uses observation as the line of inquiry, as the springboard for poetics. He feels that finding the answers is not important, but rather, the ruthlessness, the rigour of investigation is the end in itself.
Spanish artist Rocío Cano has attended three of López’s workshops and also speaks of the ‘no fear’ attitude of López’s work. “Of everything I learned from him, perhaps what has helped me the most is to not be afraid of composition. He opened the way for me to build more in paintings and to learn to observe nature as an inexhaustible source of inspiration.”
Each of the artists in the exhibition have taken what they have learned from López and applied their own eye. They learned to trust their own senses. Gallego says that “the work of the Spanish master is often grand, complex and painted with an eye for distance — I’ve moved toward the intimate, the simple, and like to get right on top of things.”
Irene Cuadrado talks about how her work has evolved since studying with López: “Over time the color has lost its exact shape and value to create larger spots, open and less subject to the reality of what is observed. However, the narrative is still in the foundations of telling my inner world through the eyes of what is close.”
By trusting their senses, seeing through their own eyes, the artists in the exhibition express their own unique visions. Carmen Mansilla notes “From being in a workshop with him I take away a feeling of wanting to paint better, to be honest with myself and have sincerity in the work.”
That is what art is for. Without honesty, art risks becoming superficial, lacking depth and genuine human experience. By looking through the eye, these artists not only reflect their own truths but also invite viewers to explore their own emotions and perspectives. It is this shared authenticity that makes art a timeless medium for communicating with one another, capable of transcending cultural and temporal boundaries, leaving a lasting impression on the hearts and minds of those who encounter it. In a world often saturated with pretense and artifice, honesty in art serves as a refreshing reminder of our shared humanity.
Jen Dale is a painter, curator, and art historian working in Portland, OR. She has a Master’s degree in Art History and a diploma in Curatorial Studies. Her work may be seen on her website, Instagram or on Medium. She writes about narrative painting on Instagram or at narrativepainting.net.
