Exhibition at the Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza from 27 February to 2 June 2024. Isabel Quintanilla has not until now received the recognition she deserves as one of the great figures of Spanish painting in the second half of the 20th century. Since the 1970s, her work has been frequently exhibited in various cities in Germany and has been acquired by museums and collectors in that country, which has prevented her from becoming better known in Spain. Half of this exhibition, which is reflected in this catalogue, is that recovered production. The curator and author, Leticia de Cos, has built an artistic and at the same time vital itinerary through Quintanilla's pictorial genres and themes. Her still lifes combine classical shapes with very contemporary objects, such as the Duralex glass, the telephone or the sewing machine (with which the artist's mother supported the family) that evoke a time and a country. Quintanilla is a painter of lived reality and a large part of her work deals with the spaces she inhabited: the bedroom, the kitchen, the bathroom, the sewing corner and the artist's studio. Although almost always empty of figures, these interiors are filled with the presence of the characters in her life, her husband and her son. Everything exudes intimacy: the windows that receive light from outside and the doors that take us further inside. An interlude on the path is dedicated to Isabel Quintanilla's companions and friends; the three painters who formed part of the group of realists in Madrid: Esperanza Parada, Amalia Avia and María Moreno. Then we go out to the landscape and the city, to the countryside horizon and the urban views. And the tour concludes with those intermediate spaces, the patios and gardens, which are so constant and so characteristic of the Madrid painter. One of the most valuable contributions of the curator's essay in the catalogue is the inscription of Quintanilla in the history of European painting. From Pompeian frescoes to the courtyards of Pieter de Hooch and the interiors of Samuel van Hoogstraten, the mysterious rooms of Vilhelm Hammershøi or the landscapes of Aureliano de Beruete.
Author: Leticia de Cos Martín (curator of the exhibition)
Dimensions: 22 x 30 cm (width x height).
200 pages. Dutch-style hardcover binding with cloth on the spine and lining sheets, endpapers and headboards.
ISBN: 9788417173838
Spanish Language
