A painter in the Madrid office

For some years, the world-famous realist artist Antonio López García has worked from one of the Madrid office’s meeting rooms.

María José Menéndez, Partner Madrid notes:

The most respected living artist in Spain—he’s a painter and sculptor—came by our office and asked if he could paint from there. That was more than 10 years ago, and he has been working there ever since. He did a painting in 1975 on the Gran Vía, which is a landmark street in Madrid, and he wanted to do a series, a bit more modern, from a bird’s-eye view (the 1975 one was painted at street level), so he visited our offices and found they matched his plans. We cleared one of the meeting rooms for him. He did a six-painting bird’s-eye-view series, and one of them shows the street from our room. The frame of our window can actually be seen.

The nearby Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum, where we do client events from time to time, ran an exhibition of his work in 2011 or so, and the series of six paintings was part of it. We organised a clients’ event to visit the exhibition and he came and joined us for the party. There were guided tours and he would join the groups, and you could see the guide saying, ‘Oh my goodness, the artist is here. What can I say about the paintings?’

The room he uses is on our meeting floor, so sometimes he will be painting while we are meeting clients. We say to them, ‘Do you want to see Antonio López?’ and they are amazed. He is the loveliest man—he will just stop what he is doing and greet them and explain his work to them.

View a video about "Antonio López at Ashurst 2007-2015" >

[Excerpt from the forthcoming book: Ashurst: The Story of a progressive global law firm – The first 200 years]