Biography in English

BIOGRAPHY OF MARÍA LUISA IBÁNEZ GARCÍA

Maria Luisa Ibáñez García was born in Logroño, La Rioja, Spain, on August 26, 1931, at the beginning of the Second Republic and at the dawn of the Spanish Civil War. Of a lowly condition, she studied brilliantly, from 1944/1945 to 1947/1948, Professional and Technical Education at the School of Arts and Artistic Trades of Logroño. She obtained in the academic year 1946/1947 the highest grade and First Prize qualification, and then in 1947/1948 she obtained the highest grade and an Accesit Award. In 1948/1949 she was named "Meritorious Assistant" of the School of Arts and Artistic Trades of Logroño, in accordance with the provisions of Article 13 of the Royal Decree of December 16, 1910. 

Subsequently, she was awarded a scholarship by the City Council of Logroño to study Painting at the Central School of Fine Arts of San Fernando, Madrid, which she did from 1952 to 1957 without interruption, with the highest average grade. On November 25, 1957, she graduated as Professor of Drawing and she did a postgraduate course, in the School of Fine Arts of San Fernando, in 1966/1967. In 1966 the Ministry of Education and Science accredited her for entry into the Official Middle Grade Teaching Staff. Later, she obtained her Higher Bachelor's degree, issued by the University of Zaragoza on September 4, 1976, and the title of Bachelor of Fine Arts (Painting Section) on January 31, 1981. To these titles are added improvement courses of various kinds such as the Improvement Course for Video Initiation, from the Institute of Educational Sciences of the University of Zaragoza (November 10, 1984) and Didactic Aspects of Drawing (ICE, 1985), among others. 

After years of teaching as a drawing teacher at schools in Madrid and Seville, she became a teacher at secondary schools in Montilla and Cabra (Córdoba). Subsequently, in 1972 she went on to work as Interim Full Professor at the University School of EGB Teachers in Logroño (University of Zaragoza), where she taught in various positions, eventually obtaining her position as Professor at the University School in the year 1984, a position which she kept until her retirement in 2001. María Luisa Ibáñez García was a versatile and prolific draftswoman and painter. She mastered complex techniques of oil, watercolor, charcoal, and nib. She was a specialist in color theory and perspective.

As a result of her teaching experience, she published two books of didactic orientation, Three-Dimensional Form in Plastic Expression (Logroño, Everi, 1983) and Spatial Creativity in Plastic Expression (Logroño, Everi, 1985), both with the collaboration of professor María Luisa Fernández. She was also an invited speaker at various workshops on pictorial techniques and plastic expression for the La Rioja Summer School. As an art critic, she published 18 articles in the Cicerone Riojano between 1984 and 1985.

As a draftswoman and painter, she has held numerous individual and group exhibitions since 1959, among them, the following: from November 6 to 21, 1959, the oil exhibition at the Trade Union Exhibition Hall in Madrid; from January 3 to 10, 1975, the oil and watercolors exhibition at the Provincial Museum, in Logroño, as well as three exhibitions of watercolors and oils in the Provincial Savings Bank of Logroño in 1976 and 1978, one in Haro (La Rioja) in the Palacio de las Bezaras, from June 17 to 22, 1980, of oils, another in the Expocultura Hall of Logroño , also of oils, from 2 to 10 November 1983, one in the Savings Bank of the Catholic Circle of Miranda de Ebro (watercolors and oils, 20-27 January 1984), one of oils in the Savings Bank of La Rioja (April 11-20, 1984) and again in the Savings Bank of the Catholic Circle of Miranda de Ebro, of oils and watercolors, from October 17 to 25, 1984. She also participated in collective exhibitions of Education and Recreation, from Logroño, where she was awarded prizes in 1949, 1950 and 1951, to later obtain a First Award in 1958. At the Círculo de Bellas Artes in Madrid she participated in 1960 in the Collective Exhibition of Painters in Africa. Other group exhibitions took place at Cenicero, la Rioja (1981), Alberite, La Rioja (1984), Galería Arte II (Logroño, 1984), Escuela de Verano de La Rioja (1985) and Galería Berruet (Logroño, 1986).

From 1987 to 2001 she focused all her activity on her work as a professor at the University of La Rioja and on the private practice of painting, in her personal office, of which there remains an important legacy of several dozen works, mainly oils and watercolors.

María Luisa Ibáñez García passed away on December 24, 2005 after a long battle with cancer.