Chronobiography
Maria Moreno
This video narrates in images the personal and artistic life of María Moreno.
María Moreno
Born in Madrid in 1933
Began her Fine Art studies in 1954
Although she spent some years in Valencia during her childhood, coinciding with the Civil War, which brought her in touch with a world of light and joy, thanks to hercontact with nature and the sea that caused an indelible mark on her. During her teens she was an avid reader and frequented museums in the capital.
After spending some time at the School of Arts and Crafts in Madrid, she passed the entrance exam to the School of Fine Arts of San Fernando, where she studied painting.
1957
In the summer of 1957, coinciding with her training, María travels to Paris to satisfy her artistic curiosity, visiting museums and seeing paintings. It will be precisely where she will make her self-portrait.
During the years 1958 and 1960 she taught drawing classes
1959
At the beginning of her career, she dedicates herself to teaching, before even concluding her studies in Fine Arts, teaching drawing classes. Task that began in the Institute Filial of Isabel the Catholic of Madrid, where taught between 1958 and 1960.
In the environment of the San Fernando School she gets to know or deepens the friendship with several students of Fine Arts who later became artists with important careers: Isabel Quintanilla, Esperanza Parada, Julio López, Francisco López, Lucio Muñoz, Enrique Gran, Joaquín Ramo and Antonio López. She will finish her studies in 1959.
Marries the artist Antonio López
1961
With him she will have two daughters, María and Carmen. They will be partners of life and trade, assuming great mutual support in the development of their careers.
1966
Her first solo exhibition took place at the Edurne Gallery
It shows a set of intimate works, in which she represents spaces of her environment, which is dominated by gloomy and collected interiors.
Returned to teaching
1966-69
Between 1966 and 1969, she returned to teach at two institutions of Alcala de Henares: the National Institute for Media Education and Labor University. She combined this work with her own artistic production.
The influence of Antonio López Torres
The painter Antonio López Torres (1902-1987), uncle of her husband, had a great impact on the work of María Moreno; both in her openness to light and in the change of her palette to warmer and clearer colors. With him they had continued contact since the sixties, both her husband and her, as well as the marriage of artists formed by Isabel Quintanilla and Francisco López.
In the sixties disclosed her work at the national level
Con Antonio López Torres
©Foto Moses
During the sixties, when art galleries proliferate in Spain, it is when she begins to exhibit her work, which she previously kept for herself. In 1966 she showed her work in two Madrid venues: Juana Mordó and Edurne galleries, where she had her already mentioned first solo exhibition.
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70s
Her work is filled with light
In 1973 she exhibited individually for the second time
1973
Her work was exhibited and sold during the seventies in several European countries, mainly in Germany, but also in France, the United Kingdom and Finland; as well as in the United States.
María exhibited alone again, but this time outside Spain, in Frankfurt, when she was invited by the gallery owner Herbert Meyer-Ellinger, who had already exhibited the realists and thanks to the interest that the work and criticism had aroused among the German public and critics. of the so-called Realistas de Madrid.
María Moreno en los lugares que le inspiraron
Participate in numerous group exhibitions in Spain since the 80s
1980
Her works are filled with light
Since the early eighties, her work has been shown in several collective exhibitions, several of which dealt with realist art and some of the art made by women, such as Women in Spanish Art (1900-1984), organized at the Center Cultural Count Duke of Madrid.
Executive producer of
The Quince Tree Sun
1990-92
María is in charge of the executive production of Víctor Erice's film, El sol del membrillo, which portrays the creative process of Antonio López and in which María Moreno herself appears as one of the main characters.
This film will win the prizes of the jury and critic of the Festival of Cannes of 1992, as well as other distinctions of several international festivals like the one of Chicago and the one of Uruguay.
From the late seventies her palette begins to clear and open to the light, gaining great prominence in her works.
1990
She presents her work in an individual exhibition at the
Claude Bernard Gallery
The 90s represent her consolidation as an artist, thanks to her taking part in numerous group shows and, especially, for her solo show at the Galerie Claude Bernard in Paris, which is committed to her work and thus expands its international support.
Otra realidad, Compañeros en Madrid exhibition, 1992
Among the exhibitions of which she took part, it highlights the travelling show Otra realidad, Compañeros en Madrid, which started in January 1992 at the Caja Madrid Foundation in the capital; since it served to place the group of figurative and abstract artists who met at the School of Fine Arts of San Fernando in the fifties and who were joined by bonds of friendship. This group was composed of Isabel Quintanilla, Julio and Francisco López Hernández, Esperanza Parada, Enrique Gran, Lucio Muñoz, Joaquín Ramo, Antonio López and María Moreno.
90s
During that decade she participated in important exhibitions both nationally and internationally that will give greater visibility to the realistic figurative art she practiced together with other friends: Otra Realidad, Compañeros en Madrid, Fundación Caja Madrid (1992); Contemporary Spanish Artists, Marlborough Fine Art, Tokyo (1992); From the Reality / Dalla Realtà - Quatro Artisti Spagnoli Contemporanei. Antonio López, Isabel Quintanilla, María Moreno, Francisco López, Accademia Spagnola di Storia, Archeologia e Belle Arti, Rome (1996); Contemporary Spanish Realists, Marlborough Fine Art, London (1996); Autour de la réalité: réalismes espagnols, Galerie Lina Davidov, Paris (1996).
2000s
She continues to participate in collective exhibitions, having special relevance those that take place from 2005 and that highlight her work together with that of her realistic companions, such as Pinceladas de Realidad. Amalia Avia, María Moreno, Isabel Quintanilla (2005), Museum of Fine Arts of La Coruña. As well as others that delved into the group of realists in all its extension as Realidad, arte spagnola della realtà, Galleria Civica di Palazzo Loffredo, Potenza (2006-2007).
Teaches workshops
She takes up teaching and teaches some courses, such as the "Francisco de Goya Chair" at the Los Serrano Palace in Ávila.
2016
Realistas de Madrid was inaugurated in 2016, a show organized by the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum in Madrid that has revived the interest in the work of the group of friends and colleagues who since the fifties of the last century have dedicated themselves to figurative art: Esperanza Parada , Amalia Avia, Julio and Francisco López, Isabel Quintanilla, María Moreno and Antonio López.
2020
She died on 17 February 2020 in Madrid at age 86.
On the occasion of what would have been his 87th birthday, this video was made in his memory, as a small tribute.
BIO
María Moreno (Madrid,1933-2020)
From a young age, she felt a strong sense of vocation for the arts and an interest in literature and music, which provided her with a rich inner world.
She trained at the School of Fine Arts of San Fernando in Madrid, which she entered in 1954 to study Fine Arts, specializing in painting. This period marked her for life, not only professionally but also personally. There she met her friends and fellow artists Antonio López, Isabel Quintanilla, Amalia Avia, Julio and Francisco Hernandez López and Lucio Muñoz (who soon shifted from figuration to abstraction, although he never abandoned the bond with the group). The work of these artists has been labelled with different names: Madrilenian realism, Madrilenian figuration, or Realists artists of Madrid, among others.
María Moreno married Antonio López in 1961 and began a long creative career. Although both have sometimes felt an interest in the same motifs, which they have approached from closeness and observation of reality, working from nature, each of them has developed their work individually, achieving their own style and vision.
Since the seventies of the last century, the work of María Moreno began to be exhibited and became part of several international collections. The exhibitions held since in Germany and the UK dedicated to the group of artists who devoted themselves to the New Figuration in Madrid at the time had a great impact.
Her solo exhibitions have been less numerous but have had a major impact on the knowledge of her work by national and international collectors. In 1973 she exhibited at the gallery of Herbert Meyer-Ellinger in Frankfurt, who also organized several relevant shows dedicated to the Spanish realism practiced by María and some of her colleagues. In 1990, the Parisian gallery owner Claude Bernard convinced the painter to exhibit in his gallery almost all the paintings and drawings made during those years; achieving a brilliant exhibition with which it obtained an important recognition.
In recent years, her work has been part of several group shows, being especially significant the one held in 1992 at the Royal Academy of Madrid, Otra realidad. Compañeros en Madrid (Another Reality. Partners in Madrid), as well as the recent Realistas de Madrid (Realists of Madrid) held at the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum (February-May 2016). The first was key in the understanding of the Madrilenian figuration that emerged in the fifties within the context of the art that was done by other contemporaries and colleagues; while the latter has offered the opportunity to put the work of these artists into perspective after having developed lengthy careers.
The subjects of her works, which are always intimately linked to her and her living space, encompass landscapes, in which Madrid has a prominent place, but also of La Mancha; portraits of people from her environment from her first years; interiors, which have been present since the beginning of her career; a few still lifes; gardens and flowers, for which she developed a special predilection from the nineties.
In addition to numerous private collections, her work is held by the following public collections: Fundació Sorigué, Lérida; Artium, Vitoria; Museum of Contemporary Art of Toledo; Iberdrola Collection, Bilbao; Colección BBVA, Madrid; Kupferstichkabinett, Kunsthalle, Hamburg.
She died on February 17, 2020 in Madrid at age 86.