Antonio López García

Antonio López García (born 6 January 1936) is a Spanish painter and sculptor, known for his realistic style. He has been praised by leading art critics, such as Robert Hughes, who considered him "the greatest realist artist alive" in 1986. His style sometimes is deemed hyperrealistic. His painting was the subject of the film El Sol del Membrillo, by Victor Erice, in 1992.

Antonio López was born on 6 January 1936 in Tomelloso, Ciudad Real, a few months before the beginning of the Spanish Civil War. It first appeared that Antonio would continue in the family tradition as a farmer, but an early facility for drawing caught the attention of his uncle Antonio López Torres, a local painter of landscapes, who gave him his first lessons. In 1949 he moved to Madrid in order to study for entrance to the competitive Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando.

Between 1950 and 1955 he studied art at the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando, winning a number of prizes. While at the school he developed a friendship with María Moreno—also a painter—whom he would marry in 1961.