The intimate realism of Isabel Quintanilla

Isabel Quintanilla is one of the key figures of contemporary realism. She lived and worked in Spain at a time when women artists lacked status and were not recognised by their male colleagues. She herself faced this kind of attitude. In her public statements, she endeavoured to defend the importance of women’s art and work.

The artist’s painting combines absolute command of technique and skill, acquired at various art schools. But Isabel did not stop with a single education. She always spoke of the constant struggle to resolve the problems that reality poses to women artists.

The exhibition presents a hundred works spanning the artist’s entire career. Many of them have never been exhibited in Spain because they were held in museums in Germany, where Isabel Quintanilla was recognised in the 1970s.

In the exhibition, visitors are welcomed into Isabel Quintanilla’s wonderful world, full of the things that surrounded her. It is a world of intimate settings with quite ordinary objects. But they always evoke sensual emotions, which is what the artist wanted to achieve.