The Leandro Navarro Gallery specializes in historical avant-garde, modern art, and figurative painting from its location in Amor de Dios. Directed by Íñigo Navarro, it combines exhibitions with an extensive catalog program. A visit to the gallery offers a chance to explore works whose development can be traced through previous publications and exhibitions, all housed in an 18th-century building in the Barrio de las Letras neighborhood.
Gallery Profile
Leandro Navarro founded the gallery after several years as a partner and director at Biosca, where he worked from 1971 to 1978. His first gallery was located on Claudio Coello Street. In 1983, it moved to Amor de Dios 1, an 18th-century mansion that had been restored to house the gallery. Íñigo Navarro joined the gallery in 1987 and currently serves as its director.
From its earliest years, the gallery worked with artists associated with Spanish Realism. At the first edition of ARCO, it presented works by Amalia Avia, Carmen Laffón, Antonio López, Francisco López Hernández, Julio López Hernández, Luis Marsans, María Moreno, and Isabel Quintanilla.
This focus was complemented by the gallery’s work with the historical avant-garde movements and international modern art. The gallery has organized exhibitions featuring Pablo Gargallo, Joan Miró, Giorgio Morandi, Pablo Picasso, Kurt Schwitters, Joaquín Torres García, Georges Valmier, Manolo Millares, and Manuel Rivera. It also collaborates with the estates of artists such as Gargallo, Millares, Benjamín Palencia, and Rivera.
Its participation in art fairs has taken the gallery beyond Madrid. Leandro Navarro has participated in ARCOmadrid since 2001 and in ARCOlisboa since 2016; it was at Art Basel Miami Beach from 2009 to 2022, at Art Basel Hong Kong in 2013, and participated in Art Basel in Basel in 2025.
Program
Why Go
An exhibition can bring together artists who are normally scattered among museums, the secondary market, and galleries dedicated to specific periods. The collection includes works by Salvador Dalí, Juan Gris, Joan Miró, Giorgio Morandi, Pablo Picasso, and Georges Valmier, along with pieces from the estates with which the gallery works. Spanish Realism also occupies a central place. Carmen Laffón, Antonio López, Julio López Hernández, Francisco López Hernández, and Isabel Quintanilla are part of a generation with which Leandro Navarro has maintained a relationship spanning decades.
Antonio López (Tomelloso, 1936) studied at the San Fernando School of Fine Arts in Madrid, where he crossed paths with several of the artists who would later be associated with Madrid Realism. Interiors, figures, trees, and views of Madrid feature in a body of work that encompasses painting, drawing, and sculpture. His work is included in the collections of the Reina Sofía Museum and the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, among others.
Isabel Quintanilla (Madrid, 1938–2017) also studied at San Fernando. She painted rooms, windows, household objects, gardens, and cityscapes. Since the 1960s, her work has had a significant presence in Germany, where she exhibited in galleries and institutions alongside other Spanish realists. In 2024, the Thyssen-Bornemisza National Museum dedicated a retrospective to her titled *The Reality of a Gaze*.
Julio López Hernández (Madrid, 1930–2018) brought his observations of people and everyday objects into his sculpture. He worked primarily with bronze and created both small-scale pieces and public art. Among his works in Madrid is the monument to Federico García Lorca in Plaza de Santa Ana.
The catalog has been expanded to include later artists such as César Galicia, Clara Gangutia, Gerardo Pita, Joaquín Risueño, Juan Carlos Savater, Álvaro Toledo, and Juan José Aquerreta.
What to Expect
"Nuda veritas " brings together more than five decades of work by Carmen Laffón (Seville, 1934–Sanlúcar de Barrameda, 2021). The exhibition begins with *El abrigo de Marcelina*(1965) and extends to the *La sal* series created toward the end of her life. For decades, Laffón painted the landscapes surrounding Sanlúcar de Barrameda and the mouth of the Guadalquivir River. Doñana as seen from the opposite bank, the Bonanza salt flats, and the vineyards appear alongside interiors, portraits, and objects from her domestic environment. She worked in oil, pastel, and charcoal, and in the final phase of her career, she extended some of these themes to sculpture and relief.
A coffee maker, a closet, and the paintbrushes from his studio are among the works selected for *Nuda veritas*. The exhibition also includes landscapes of Sanlúcar and drawings created at the Generalife. The vineyard occupied several years of his work. In 2007, the Reina Sofía Museum presented an exhibition of drawings and sculptures at the Abbey of Santo Domingo de Silos dedicated to grapevines and objects related to their cultivation. Years later, he worked at the Bonanza salt flats. The series *La sal* includes plaster bas-reliefs created with oil paint, graphite, and charcoal; several of these pieces are part of the Reina Sofía’s collection.
The Madrid museum had already dedicated a retrospective to Laffón in 1992, titled *Still Lifes, Figures, and Landscapes*. *Nuda veritas* revisits that exhibition with works created between 1965 and the final years of his life. The exhibition catalog includes an essay by Amalia García Rubí.
What to Do Nearby
Leandro Navarro is located on Amor de Dios Street, right in the heart of the Barrio de las Letras neighborhood. Just a few meters away, at number 12 on the same street, La Sanabresa operates a restaurant serving Spanish cuisine with a set menu and traditional dishes. It’s one of those restaurants that still retains the feel of a neighborhood eatery in an area where much of the dining scene has changed in recent years.
At 19 Lope de Vega is the Miguel Miranda Bookstore, which specializes in antique books. Its shelves are filled with first editions, literature, history, art, manuscripts, engravings, and other printed materials. From the gallery, it takes just a few minutes to walk there through the streets of the Barrio de las Letras. The walk can continue toward the Prado. The Prado Museum, the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum, and the CaixaForum are all within walking distance of Amor de Dios.
