Gloria García is the niece of the Spanish poet Federico García Lorca (the daughter of his brother Francisco). She was born in exile and completed a Bachelor of Arts degree at Sarah Lawrence College in New York. In the early 1970s she moved to Spain and began her professional career just at the turn of the decade, at a time when there was a more open debate on the Spanish art scene about the relevance and potential of painting. García’s academic background and her direct knowledge of post-avant-garde American painting, together with her undeniable connection to Spanish culture (she is also an outstanding translator), enabled her to adopt a central, open position in relation to the prevalent modern tradition in international painting, as well as equipping her to pursue her own innovations. The most notable features of the paintings she produced in the 1980s (exhibited at the prestigious galleries of Juana Mordó, and later at those of Juana de Aizpuru), including Casita valiente (1984) and Montañas (1985), were their chromatic power and contrasts, and a dispersion of coetaneous form towards the unmoored gestural tendencies of abstraction.