Quintanilla was one of the leading figures of Spanish figurative painting from the 1970s on and belonged to a generation of artists known as the ‘Madrid Realists’. In 1953 she joined the San Fernando School of Fine Arts, where her fellow students included the painters Antonio López, Amalia Avia and María Moreno and the sculptor Francisco López, whom she married. Together, they embraced the challenge of going against the boom in informalist abstract art to seek, each from their personal stance, their own understanding of realism. Quintanilla was noted for clear, intimate poetics based on her everyday life. Gardens, still-lifes, nooks, corners, interiors and household items were the main subjects of her paintings and drawings, alternating with urban landscapes from the cities where she lived, all addressed from an attentive, calm perception of reality with the study of natural or artificial light as a fundamental aspect. In 1960 she was awarded a grant as a drawing assistant at the Beatriz Galindo High School and that same year she and her husband moved to Rome, where they lived for four years. Her views of the city produced at that time were important and she went back to them in the 1990s. Back in Madrid, she graduated in Fine Arts from the Complutense University in 1982.
Isabel Quintanilla’s work has had a strong international presence, especially in Italy, where her first show was at Caltanissetta (Palermo, 1963); and in Germany, where her work was exhibited in galleries in Frankfurt, Hamburg and Munich, mainly in the 1970s. She also featured in group exhibitions on Spanish realism at venues including the Kunsthalle (Baden-Baden, Germany, 1976), the Hamburg Kunstverein und Kunsthaus (Hamburg, Germany, 1978), as well as in France and the United States. Quintanilla also took part in events such as Documenta 6 (Kassel, Germany, 1977). Her work was regularly exhibited in Spain in galleries in Madrid and Seville, with a particularly noteworthy retrospective at the Conde Duque Cultural Centre (Madrid, 1996). She also took part in group exhibitions at the Reina Sofía (Madrid, 1987) and the Prado (Madrid, 2007 & 2013), and in ‘Realists’, recently shown at the Patio Herreriano Museum (Valladolid, 2016) and ‘Madrid Realists’ at the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum (Madrid, 2016).
Quintanilla was one of the leading figures of Spanish figurative painting from the 1970s on and belonged to a generation of artists known as the ‘Madrid Realists’. In 1953 she joined the San Fernando School of Fine Arts, where her fellow students included the painters Antonio López, Amalia Avia and María Moreno and the sculptor Francisco López, whom she married. Together, they embraced the challenge of going against the boom in informalist abstract art to seek, each from their personal stance, their own understanding of realism. Quintanilla was noted for clear, intimate poetics based on her everyday life. Gardens, still-lifes, nooks, corners, interiors and household items were the main subjects of her paintings and drawings, alternating with urban landscapes from the cities where she lived, all addressed from an attentive, calm perception of reality with the study of natural or artificial light as a fundamental aspect. In 1960 she was awarded a grant as a drawing assistant at the Beatriz Galindo High School and that same year she and her husband moved to Rome, where they lived for four years. Her views of the city produced at that time were important and she went back to them in the 1990s. Back in Madrid, she graduated in Fine Arts from the Complutense University in 1982.
Isabel Quintanilla’s work has had a strong international presence, especially in Italy, where her first show was at Caltanissetta (Palermo, 1963); and in Germany, where her work was exhibited in galleries in Frankfurt, Hamburg and Munich, mainly in the 1970s. She also featured in group exhibitions on Spanish realism at venues including the Kunsthalle (Baden-Baden, Germany, 1976), the Hamburg Kunstverein und Kunsthaus (Hamburg, Germany, 1978), as well as in France and the United States. Quintanilla also took part in events such as Documenta 6 (Kassel, Germany, 1977). Her work was regularly exhibited in Spain in galleries in Madrid and Seville, with a particularly noteworthy retrospective at the Conde Duque Cultural Centre (Madrid, 1996). She also took part in group exhibitions at the Reina Sofía (Madrid, 1987) and the Prado (Madrid, 2007 & 2013), and in ‘Realists’, recently shown at the Patio Herreriano Museum (Valladolid, 2016) and ‘Madrid Realists’ at the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum (Madrid, 2016).