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Thumbnail-size images of copyrighted artworks are displayed under fair use, in accordance with guidelines recommended by the Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for the Visual Arts, published by the College Art Association in February 2015.
Atocha
Antonio López García (Spanish, born in 1936)
1964
Medium/Technique
Oil on wood
Dimensions
37 x 41 in. (40 1/4 x 45 1/4 x 2 3/4 in. overall)
Credit Line
Melvin Blake and Frank Purnell Collection
Accession Number2003.42
NOT ON VIEW
CollectionsEurope, Contemporary Art
ClassificationsPaintings
The train station at Atocha holds a special place in Antonio López García's memory; it is through this very station that he first entered Madrid as a teenager, on his way to prepare for the entrance exams at the San Fernando Royal Academy of Fine Arts. Indeed, López García's depiction of this transitional space, with its nearly impressionistic, cold atmosphere, evokes a sense of nostalgia. But this scene vacillates between memory and surreal dream, as a man and woman copulate on the cold floor, disrupting-even opposing-the quiet streets of Atocha in the early morning.
ProvenanceThe artist; with Staempfli Gallery, New York; about 1965, purchased by Melvin N. Blake (b. 1927 - d. 1999) and Frank M. Purnell (b. 1930 - d. 1994), New York; gift of the estate of Melvin Blake to MFA, Boston, January 22, 2003
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