Rómulo Rozo
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Rómulo Rozo Peña (1899
Bogotá Bogotá (, also , , ), officially Bogotá, Distrito Capital, abbreviated Bogotá, D.C., and formerly known as Santa Fe de Bogotá (; ) during the Spanish Imperial period and between 1991 and 2000, is the capital city, capital and largest city ...
– 1964
Mérida, Yucatán Mérida (, ) is the capital of the List of states of Mexico, Mexican state of Yucatán, and the largest city in southeastern Mexico. The city is also the seat of the Mérida Municipality, eponymous municipality. It is located slightly inland fro ...
) was a Colombian-born Mexican sculptor. Some sources state that he was born in
Chiquinquirá Chiquinquirá is a town and municipality in the Colombian Department of Boyacá, part of the subregion of the Western Boyacá Province. Located some 115 km north of Bogotá, Chiquinquirá is situated above sea level and has a yearly aver ...
, Boyacá. He lived a major part of his life in
Mexico Mexico, officially the United Mexican States, is a country in North America. It is the northernmost country in Latin America, and borders the United States to the north, and Guatemala and Belize to the southeast; while having maritime boundar ...
. Rozo married Ana Krauss in
Czechoslovakia Czechoslovakia ( ; Czech language, Czech and , ''Česko-Slovensko'') was a landlocked country in Central Europe, created in 1918, when it declared its independence from Austria-Hungary. In 1938, after the Munich Agreement, the Sudetenland beca ...
and they had three children: Rómulo, Gloria and Leticia. His second wife was Manuela Vera (She was born in
Yucatán Yucatán, officially the Free and Sovereign State of Yucatán, is one of the 31 states which, along with Mexico City, constitute the 32 federal entities of Mexico. It comprises 106 separate municipalities, and its capital city is Mérida. ...
) with whom he had two children: Marco Antonio and Gloria Antonia. Rozo is best known for his internationally recognized sculpture, ''Bachué'', which influenced a generation of Colombian artists.


Studies

Rozo completed his studies at the National School of Fine Arts, Central Technical Institute of Bogota. While he traveled through Europe between the 1924 and 1929, he studied at the Saint Fernando Academy of Fine Arts in
Madrid Madrid ( ; ) is the capital and List of largest cities in Spain, most populous municipality of Spain. It has almost 3.5 million inhabitants and a Madrid metropolitan area, metropolitan area population of approximately 7 million. It i ...
, Spain. He then completed his studies in
Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...
, France, with
Antoine Bourdelle Antoine Bourdelle (; 30 October 1861 – 1 October 1929), born Émile Antoine Bordelles, was an influential and prolific French sculptor and teacher. He was a student of Auguste Rodin, a teacher of Giacometti and Henri Matisse, and an important ...
, who exerted a major influence on his works. He participated in the
Ibero-American Exposition of 1929 The Ibero-American Exposition of 1929 (; ) was a world's fair held in Seville, Spain, from 9 May 1929 until 21 June 1930. Countries in attendance of the exposition included: Portugal, the United States, Brazil, Uruguay, Mexico, Peru, Argentina, C ...
in
Seville Seville ( ; , ) is the capital and largest city of the Spain, Spanish autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community of Andalusia and the province of Seville. It is situated on the lower reaches of the Guadalquivir, River Guadalquivir, ...
, Spain, where he won the Big Prize and the Medal of Gold, before returning to the Americas.


''Bachué'' and Seville

In 1925, Rozo made one of his most renowned works, the ''Bachué goddess generatriz of the chibchas'', a
granite Granite ( ) is a coarse-grained (phanerite, phaneritic) intrusive rock, intrusive igneous rock composed mostly of quartz, alkali feldspar, and plagioclase. It forms from magma with a high content of silica and alkali metal oxides that slowly coo ...
sculpture inspired by Colombian and pre-Columbian mythology. The work is a reference to the goddess
Bachué The goddess Bachué (in Chibcha language: "the one with the naked breast") is a mother goddess that, according to the Muisca religion, is the mother of humanity. She emerged of the waters in the Iguaque Lake with a baby in her arms, who grew to ...
, mother of the Muisca civilisation in their mythology. The response of the international press to ''Bachué'' and Rozo's other works raised the sculptor to greater recognition. He mixed his academic knowledge of Western art with elements of his own Latin American culture and native cultures of Asia and Africa, references he drew from the collections of the
Louvre The Louvre ( ), or the Louvre Museum ( ), is a national art museum in Paris, France, and one of the most famous museums in the world. It is located on the Rive Droite, Right Bank of the Seine in the city's 1st arrondissement of Paris, 1st arron ...
and museums of the Trocadéro in Paris.AA. Admiration of Rozo's works was so great as to inspire a 1930 ephemeral literary movement in Colombia called "The Bachués", which advocated the review of the vernacular roots for the creation of a common people's art, in opposition to academic art. The continuity of this influence among the sculptors of this generation (such as Luis Alberto Acuña, Ignacio Gómez Jaramillo,
Pedro Nel Gómez Pedro Nel Gómez Agudelo (4 July, 1899–6 June, 1984) was a Colombian engineer, painter, and sculptor, best known for his work as a muralist, and for starting, along with Santiago Martinez Delgado, the Colombian Muralist Movement, inspired b ...
, Ramón Barba, José Domingo Rodríguez, Hena Rodríguez, Miguel Sopó and Rodrigo Arenas Betancourt) signal the ''Bachué'' as the foundational sculpture of modern art in Colombia. For the
Ibero-American Exposition of 1929 The Ibero-American Exposition of 1929 (; ) was a world's fair held in Seville, Spain, from 9 May 1929 until 21 June 1930. Countries in attendance of the exposition included: Portugal, the United States, Brazil, Uruguay, Mexico, Peru, Argentina, C ...
in Seville, the Colombian government hired Rozo to make the ornamentation for the Colombian Pavilion. Rozo reformed Spanish architect
José Granados José Granados Navedo (born February 1, 1946), is a former Speaker Pro Tempore, minority leader, and majority leader of the House of Representatives of Puerto Rico, serving a various times throughout the 1970s and 1980s, before briefly returning t ...
's original idea, which did allusion to a baroque church, turning it instead into a temple with an ornamental reference to the Chibchas gods of the Colombian prehispanic territory. Rozo convinced the collector of the ''Bachué'' to loan the work, so it could be placed in the middle of the pavilion during the year that the event lasted. Around it, Rozo created figures in plaster and concrete, with clear referents to the cultures of Tolima, Saint Agustín, Muiscas and the Mayas. The finished result of the installation was an odd beauty between the conjunction of religious architecture with a decoration based in pre-Columbian civilisations. Again, the international press concluded it to be an unprecedented success for the sculptor. Rozo decided not to return to Colombia, moving permanently to Mexico in 1931. In spite of the great influence of the ''Bachué'' in the nationalist generation of artists in Colombia, the work disappeared after its exhibition in Seville. Only in 1998 (68 years after) was it found by art historian Álvaro Medina, and returned to Colombia for the exhibition "Colombia in the threshold of the modernity", curated by the same researcher. During the time the work was missing, a new wave of young artists and the media power of the Argentinian art critic Marta Traba overshadowed the contributions of this generation, condemning it to a second place in the history of Colombian art that was only reassessed since its reappearance. In spite of its historical value, no cultural institution in Colombia showed interest in purchasing it. However, the work became part of the collection of the Foundation Project Bachué, a platform interested in the conservation and gathering of Colombian art.


See also

*
List of Colombian artists This is a list of Colombian artists. Colombian art has 3,500 years of history and covers a wide range of media and styles ranging from Quimbaya gold craftwork and Spanish Baroque devotional painting to modern Colombian cinema and conceptual art mo ...
*
List of Mexican artists This is a list of Mexican artists. This list includes people born in Mexico, notably of Mexican descent, or otherwise strongly associated to Mexico. Illustrators, graphic artists * Angélica Argüelles Kubli (born 1963) *Alberto Beltrán (19 ...
*
List of sculptors This is a list of sculptors – notable people known for three-dimensional artistic creations, which may include those who use sound and light. It is incomplete and you can help by expanding it. A B C D E F G H } I J K L ...


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Rozo, Romulo Date of birth missing Date of death missing 1899 births 1964 deaths 20th-century Colombian male artists 20th-century Colombian sculptors 20th-century Mexican male artists 20th-century Mexican sculptors Artists from Bogotá Artists from Yucatán (state) Colombian emigrants to Mexico Colombian expatriates in France Colombian expatriates in Spain Colombian sculptors Expatriates in Czechoslovakia Mexican expatriates in France Mexican expatriates in Spain Mexican male sculptors Naturalized citizens of Mexico People from Chiquinquirá People from Mérida, Yucatán