Rogelio Yrurtia (December 6, 1879 – March 4, 1950) was a renowned

Argentine Argentines (mistakenly translated Argentineans in the past; in Spanish (masculine) or (feminine)) are people identified with the country of Argentina. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Argentines, ...

sculptor of the Realist school.

Life and work

Born in

Buenos Aires Buenos Aires ( or ; ), officially the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires ( es, link=no, Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires), is the capital and primate city of Argentina. The city is located on the western shore of the Río de la Plata, on South ...

Argentina Argentina (), officially the Argentine Republic ( es, link=no, República Argentina), is a country in the southern half of South America. Argentina covers an area of , making it the List of South American countries by area, second-largest ...

to Basque immigrants in 1879, Rogelio Yrurtia enrolled in the local Society for the Promotion of Fine Arts in 1899. A talented student, he quickly earned a scholarship on which he traveled to

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. Si ...

. There, he attended the prestigious

Académie Julien An academy (Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of secondary or tertiary higher learning (and generally also research or honorary membership). The name traces back to Plato's school of philosophy, f ...

, where he was apprenticed under

Jules-Felix Coutan Jules-Félix Coutan (22 September 1848 – 23 February 1939) was a French sculptor and educator. Life As a student at the École des Beaux-Arts, Coutan was awarded the Prix de Rome in 1872; after his return to Paris he executed the ...

. Securing his first exhibition at the National Society of French Artists in 1903, he obtained a Grand Prize at the 1904

Louisiana Purchase Exposition The Louisiana Purchase Exposition, informally known as the St. Louis World's Fair, was an World's fair, international exposition held in St. Louis, Missouri, United States, from April 30 to December 1, 1904. Local, state, and federal funds tota ...

in St. Louis, Missouri. Yrurtia returned to Buenos Aires in 1905, where he presented a number of exhibitions and, in 1907, was commissioned to create a monument to 1820s-era Argentine statesman Manuel Dorrego. Relocating to

Barcelona, Spain Barcelona ( , , ) is a city on the coast of northeastern Spain. It is the capital and largest city of the autonomous community of Catalonia, as well as the second most populous municipality of Spain. With a population of 1.6 million within ci ...

, his work earned him a Grand Prize at the 1911 International Arts Exposition there. Upon his return to Buenos Aires in 1916, Yrurtia was commissioned to sculpt a likeness of

Bernardino Rivadavia Bernardino de la Trinidad González Rivadavia (May 20, 1780 – September 2, 1845) was the first President of Argentina, then called the United Provinces of the Río de la Plata, from February 8, 1826 to June 27, 1827. He was educated at ...

, the first Constitutional

President of Argentina The president of Argentina ( es, Presidente de Argentina), officially known as the president of the Argentine Nation ( es, Presidente de la Nación Argentina), is both head of state and head of government of Argentina. Under the national cons ...

, for a

mausoleum A mausoleum is an external free-standing building constructed as a monument enclosing the interment space or burial chamber of a deceased person or people. A mausoleum without the person's remains is called a cenotaph. A mausoleum may be cons ...

planned in his honor for

Plaza Miserere Plaza de Miserere is one of the main plazas (squares) of Buenos Aires, Argentina. It is located alongside the Once de Septiembre Station of the Ferrocarril Domingo Faustino Sarmiento (Sarmiento railroad) in the heart of the Balvanera neighborhood ...

(it's worth noting that Rivadavia, who died in exile in 1845, had requested that his remains ''not'' return to Argentina). Continuing to exhibit successfully in Argentina and abroad, the city of Buenos Aires commissioned him for the creation of a monument to grace a median plaza along Paseo Colón, a major thoroughfare south of downtown. The monument, ''Ode to Labour'', was inaugurated in 1927 and stands as Yrurtia's most ambitious work, remaining arguably his best-known. Industrialist and philanthropist Carlos Delcasse commissioned Yrurtia for his crypt in the Buenos Aires suburb of Vicente López, which the noted sculptor completed in 1936. The work's highlight, ''Justice'', was created at Delcasse's request; though not a jurist, Delcasse considered himself a "friend of the court." The sculpture was reproduced in

bronze Bronze is an alloy consisting primarily of copper, commonly with about 12–12.5% tin and often with the addition of other metals (including aluminium, manganese, nickel, or zinc) and sometimes non-metals, such as phosphorus, or metalloids suc ...

for the Argentine Supreme Court. Creating a ''

Moses Moses hbo, מֹשֶׁה, Mōše; also known as Moshe or Moshe Rabbeinu ( Mishnaic Hebrew: מֹשֶׁה רַבֵּינוּ, ); syr, ܡܘܫܐ, Mūše; ar, موسى, Mūsā; grc, Mωϋσῆς, Mōÿsēs () is considered the most important pr ...

'' for the 1937 grand opening of the Juan B. Castagnino Fine Arts Museum in

Rosario Rosario () is the largest city in the central Argentine province of Santa Fe. The city is located northwest of Buenos Aires, on the west bank of the Paraná River. Rosario is the third-most populous city in the country, and is also the most p ...

, Yrurtia became one of the founding members of the National Academy of Fine Arts in 1938 and he continued to exhibit periodically, working from his

Baroque The Baroque (, ; ) is a style of architecture, music, dance, painting, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished in Europe from the early 17th century until the 1750s. In the territories of the Spanish and Portuguese empires including ...

home in the Belgrano section of Buenos Aires. Yrurtia died there in 1950, bequeathing his home as a museum. ''The Boxers'', one of his last works, stands in the central courtyard. File:CantoAlTrabajo003.JPG, ''Ode to Labour'' File:Canto al trabajo (frag3)-Yrurtia.jpg, ''Ode to Labour'' – detail File:Estatua Rivadavia Plaza Miserere.JPG, Monument to Bernardino Rivadavia File:CasaDeYrurtia015.jpg, ''The Boxers'', Yrurtia Museum File:Buenos_aires_yrurtia_dorrego_7_DSC_3810.jpg, ''Alegoría de la Fatalidad'' (1926), part of Monument to Manuel Dorrego, Buenos Aires

References

ArteSur:Rogelio Yrurtia
{{DEFAULTSORT:Yrurtia, Rogelio 1879 births 1950 deaths Argentine people of Basque descent People from Buenos Aires Argentine sculptors Argentine male artists Male sculptors 20th-century sculptors