Antonio Lopez

Antonio López García’s Everyday Urban Worlds: A Philosophy of Painting is the first book to give the famed Spanish artist the critical attention he deserves. Born in Tomelloso in 1936 and still living in the Spanish capital today, Antonio López has long cultivated a reputation for impressive urban scenes—but it is urban time that is his real subject. Going far beyond mere artist biography, Benjamin Fraser explores the relevance of multiple disciplines to an understanding of the painter’s large-scale canvasses. Weaving selected images together with their urban referents—and without ever straying too far from discussion of the painter’s oeuvre, method and reception by critics—Fraser pulls from disciplines as varied as philosophy, history, Spanish literature and film, cultural studies, urban geography, architecture, and city planning in his analyses. The book begins at ground level with one of the artist’s most recognizable images, the Gran Vía, which captures the urban project that sought to establish Madrid as an emblem of modernity. Here, discussion of the artist’s chosen painting style—one that has been referred to as a ‘hyperrealism’—is integrated with the central street’s history, the capital’s famous literary figures, and its filmic representations, setting up the philosophical perspective toward which the book gradually develops. Chapter two rises in altitude to focus on Madrid desde Torres Blancas, an urban image painted from the vantage point provided by an iconic high-rise in the north-central area of the city. Discussion of the Spanish capital’s northward expansion complements a broad view of the artist’s push into representations of landscape and allows for the exploration of themes such as political conflict, social inequality, and the accelerated cultural change of an increasingly mobile nation during the 1960s. Chapter three views Madrid desde la torre de bomberos de Vallecas and signals a turn toward political philosophy. Here, the size of the artist’s image itself foregrounds questions of scale, which Fraser paints in broad strokes as he blends discussions of artistry with the turbulent history of one of Madrid’s outlying districts and a continued focus on urban development and its literary and filmic resonance. Antonio López García’s Everyday Urban Worlds also includes an artist timeline, a concise introduction and an epilogue centering on the artist’s role in the Spanish film El sol del membrillo. The book’s clear style and comprehensive endnotes make it appropriate for both general readers and specialists alike.

Antonio de Padua Maria Severino Lopez de Santa Anna was a man of many titles general in the Mexican army, president, dictator, landowner and administrator, husband, and father. Santa Anna is well known for his part in the infamous Battle of the Alamo during the U.S.-Mexican War and is considered by many to be a bloodthirsty tyrant. However, there were many sides to this icon of Mexican history. During his long life, Santa Anna rose to the pinnacle of power, yet he died nearly penniless and forgotten. This new biography traces his path from middle-class beginnings to the halls of the capital in Mexico City to exile in Cuba to his final days.

Who was Mexican General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna? What was his role in the Texas War of Independence and eventual settlement of Texas? Reading about the past as well as the people who made significant decisions that forever changed history will allow you to learn from mistakes and successes. Go ahead and grab a copy today.

The Spanish artist Antonio López García 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 López García 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: López García 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 López García's astounding achievement. Antonio López García (born 1936) studied at the School of Art in Madrid in the early 1950s, and quickly became part of a nucleus of realist painters, such as Francisco López Hernández, Amalia Avia and Isabel Quintanilla. López García was the subject of Víctor Erice's 1992 film El Sol del Membrillo (The Quince Tree of the Sun), which closely chronicles the artist's attempts to paint a quince tree.

If Antonio Lopez had left us only his Instatmatic photographs, and not the drawings for which he is known, we would still have cause to celebrate a brilliant artistic vision. The compendium includes the most creative and innovative of those images, spanning the 1970s. Most of these have never been published and will come as a revelation to those unfamiliar with this aspect of his achievements. Throughout his career Lopez kept a visual photographic diary of the people who came and went through the studio where he and hist partner, art director Juan Ramos, were rewriting the history of fashion illustration. Lopez was not content to merely record these faces and bodies; he elaborated each into a sequence, and then explored the potential fantasy within each series. He would arrange these pictures into photo albums. This is the chronicle of an era as seen through the eyes and sensibility of one of its greatest visionaries. If you lived through that period, this is one of the best

Presenting an overview of fashion drawing, presentation and illustration, this work teaches students how to draw the fashion figure as well as featuring the work of established illustrators, encouraging readers to observe and to develop their confidence and skills as an illustrator.