The Spanish artist Antonio Lopez Garcia is revered worldwide
not only for the extreme realism he brings to his paintings and
drawings, but because he conveys through this extreme realism a
wonderful sensitivity to light, color and space, enabling each to
breathe with a tranquility that allows for the encroachments of
everyday life. Interior scenes of dining tables, bathroom sinks,
toilets, dressers are depicted in sober light that recall Chardin
or the intimisme of Vuillard--though Lopez Garcia surpasses even
these masters in his ability to make unforgivingly prosaic subject
matter, such as a brick wall or a refrigerator, sparkle and throb
with mood. The artist''s statement that "you work until the whole
surface has an expressive intensity equivalent to what you have
before you, converted into a pictorial reality" conveys something
of the labor he brings to his works: Lopez Garcia is not a prolific
artist, and as a result shows rarely his 2008 exhibition at the
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, consolidated his already strong
audience in the U.S.. His drawings and paintings are equally
esteemed, but until now, the drawings have never been the subject
of a monograph. All of the work in this superbly designed
publication has been carefully selected by the artist''s daughter,
Maria; much of it has never been reproduced until now. Including
200 color plates and a moving text by the artist himself, it stands
as a powerful testimony to Lopez Garcia''s astounding
achievement.