Águeda Dicancro (1938 – August 14, 2019) was a

Uruguay Uruguay, officially the Oriental Republic of Uruguay, is a country in South America. It shares borders with Argentina to its west and southwest and Brazil to its north and northeast, while bordering the Río de la Plata to the south and the A ...

sculptor Sculpture is the branch of the visual arts that operates in three dimensions. Sculpture is the three-dimensional art work which is physically presented in the dimensions of height, width and depth. It is one of the plastic arts. Durable sc ...

from

Montevideo Montevideo (, ; ) is the capital city, capital and List of cities in Uruguay, largest city of Uruguay. According to the 2023 census, the city proper has a population of 1,302,954 (about 37.2% of the country's total population) in an area of . M ...

, noted for her

plastic art Plastic arts are art forms which involve physical manipulation of a ''plastic medium'', such as clay, wax, paint or even plastic in the modern sense of the word (a ductile polymer) to create works of art. The term is used more generally to refer ...

. Her art is featured at the

Museo Nacional de Artes Visuales National Museum of Visual Arts (Uruguay) () a museum in Parque Rodó, Montevideo, Uruguay. It was inaugurated on December 10, 1911. This museum has the largest collection of Uruguayan artworks. Among them are works by Olga Piria, Rafael Barradas ...

in Montevideo.

Life

Dicancro studied at the

University of the Republic The University of the Republic (, sometimes ''UdelaR'') is a public research university in Montevideo, Uruguay. It is the country's oldest and largest university, as well as one of the largest public universities in South America in terms of en ...

National School of Fine Arts (') between 1960 and 1964, and later at Uruguay's Universidad del Trabajo. She also studied engraving and cement sculpture under Spanish sculptor Eduardo Yepes, before graduating as a professional ceramist in 1964. She was awarded a scholarship from the

Organization of American States The Organization of American States (OAS or OEA; ; ; ) is an international organization founded on 30 April 1948 to promote cooperation among its member states within the Americas. Headquartered in Washington, D.C., United States, the OAS is ...

and traveled to Mexico in 1964 to study

ceramics A ceramic is any of the various hard, brittle, heat-resistant, and corrosion-resistant materials made by shaping and then firing an inorganic, nonmetallic material, such as clay, at a high temperature. Common examples are earthenware, porce ...

at the Universidad Nacional Autonoma's School of Applied Arts, and was awarded a second scholarship to study gold and silver

metalworking Metalworking is the process of shaping and reshaping metals in order to create useful objects, parts, assemblies, and large scale structures. As a term, it covers a wide and diverse range of processes, skills, and tools for producing objects on e ...

at Mexico's School of Design. However, she is primarily known for her sculptures made of glass, her chief material alongside wood. She began using glass in 1968 in her jewelry, and by 1970 started working with it on a much larger scale, incorporating it into living spaces by collaborating with architects, decorators, and lighting experts. The combination of glass and wood could be seen in her opalescent exhibition ''Arborescencias'' at the

. An Águeda Dicancro sculpture of steel and glass can be found in the

Telecommunications Tower (Montevideo) Torre de las Telecomunicaciones (Telecommunications Tower), or Torre Joaquín Torres García ( Joaquín Torres García Tower), usually referred as ''Antel Tower'', is a building with 35 floors located in Montevideo, Uruguay. It hosts the head ...

, the current location of

ANTEL The Administración Nacional de Telecomunicaciones (ANTEL, literally "National Administration of Telecommunications") is Uruguay's government-owned telecommunications company, founded in 1974 as a separate legal entity after spinning off the tel ...

Awards

* International Ceramic Art Contest XXXIII,

Faenza Faenza (, ; ; or ; ) is an Italian city and comune of 59,063 inhabitants in the province of Ravenna, Emilia-Romagna, situated southeast of Bologna. Faenza is home to a historical manufacture of majolica-ware glazed earthenware pottery, known ...

, Italy * 1965, First Prize in Ceramics at the

Ford Foundation The Ford Foundation is an American private foundation with the stated goal of advancing human welfare. Created in 1936 by Edsel Ford and his father Henry Ford, it was originally funded by a $25,000 (about $550,000 in 2023) gift from Edsel Ford. ...

Contest, Mexico * 1966, Grand Prize and First Prize in Jewelry of the 1st Hall of Decorative Arts, National Plastic Arts Committee * Honorable Mention at the Second International Applied Arts Biennial,

Punta del Este Punta del Este () is a seaside city and peninsula on the Atlantic Coast in the Maldonado Department of southeastern Uruguay. Starting as a small town, Punta del Este grew to become a resort for the Latin and North American jet set and tourists. T ...

* 1967, Acquisition Prize at the Salón Municipal XV * Gold Medal at the Commune of Rome (1973) * 1978, First Prize at the Mural Contest, Puerta del Sol building, Punta del Este * Acquisition Prize at the Salón Municipal XXXIII * 2001, Prmio Alas * 2002, Premio Figari She was selected to represent Uruguay at the

Venice Bienniale Venice ( ; ; , formerly ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto Regions of Italy, region. It is built on a group of 118 islands that are separated by expanses of open water and by canals; portions of the city are li ...

in 1993 and the San Pablo Biennial in 1994.

References

* ''A portion of this article was translated from the corresponding article in the Spanish Wikipedia.'' Uruguayan women sculptors 1938 births 2019 deaths Artists from Montevideo 20th-century Uruguayan sculptors 21st-century Uruguayan sculptors 20th-century Uruguayan women artists 21st-century Uruguayan women artists University of the Republic (Uruguay) alumni 20th-century women sculptors 21st-century women sculptors {{Uruguay-sculptor-stub