December 16, 2024 • 33 mins
Joaquín Torres-García was Uruguayan-born artist who wanted to bring Constructivism and Modernism to Latin America, and worked for much of his life promoting the idea that Latin-American voices should be part of the Modernist art movement.
Research:
· Bollar, Gorki. “Primitive Paintings: Connections to Realism and Constructivism.” Leonardo, vol. 17, no. 1, 1984, pp. 17–19. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/1574851
· Britannica, The Editors of Encyclopaedia. "Joaquín Torres-García". Encyclopedia Britannica, 4 Aug. 2024, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Joaquin-Torres-Garcia
· Duncan, Barbara. “Exploring New Horizons in Latin American Contemporary Art.” Revista: Harvard Review of Latin America. Dec. 30, 2001. https://revista.drclas.harvard.edu/exploring-new-horizons-in-latin-american-contemporary-art/
· Grimson, Karen. “JOAQUÍN TORRES-GARCÍA’S CREATIVE PARADOX.” INTI, no. 83/84, 2016, pp. 261–65. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/26309985
· Jimenez, Maya, Dr. “Joaquin Torres-Garcia, Inverted America.” Smart History. Aug. 9, 2015. https://smarthistory.org/Torres-Garcia-inverted-america/
· “Joaquín Torres-García.” Art Collection. https://artcollection.io/artist/5ce4801004726600179036b4#:~:text=He%20worked%20on%20the%20first,la%20Sagrada%20Familia%20in%20Barcelona.
· “Joaquín Torres García.” Centro Cultura Regoleta. http://cvaa.com.ar/04ingles/04biografias_en/torres_garcia_en.php
· “Joaquín Torres-García.” Guggenheim. https://www.guggenheim.org/artwork/artist/joaquin-Torres-Garcia
· “Joaquin Torres Garcia (1874-1949).” National Museum of Visual Art. https://mnav.gub.uy/cms.php?a=4
· “Joaquín Torres-García.” National Gallery of Art. https://www.nga.gov/collection/artist-info.2518.html
· “Joaquín Torres-García.” Hutchinson Modern & Contemporary. https://hutchinsonmodern.com/artists/40-joaquin-Torres-Garcia/biography/
Medina, Alvaro. “Torres-García and the Southern School.” ArtNexus. https://www.artnexus.com/en/magazines/article-magazine-artnexus/5ebf04481ae60a0ea57baa18/3/Torres-Garcia-and-the-southern-school
· Museo Torres Garcia. “bio.” https://www.torresgarcia.org.uy/bio.php
· ROMMENS, AARNOUD. “Latin American Abstraction: Upending Joaquín Torres-García’s Inverted Map.” Mosaic: An Interdisciplinary Critical Journal, vol. 51, no. 2, 2018, pp. 35–58. JSTOR, https://www.jstor.org/stable/90021965
· Torres, Celia de. “Constructing Abstraction with Wood: Joaquín Torres-García.” Literal. Issue 18. April 18, 2012. https://literalmagazine.com/constructing-abstraction-with-wood-joaquin-Torres-Garcia/
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production
of iHeartRadio. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Holly
Frye and I'm Tracy V. Wilson. I started this episode
planning to talk about a different artist before I realized
(00:22):
I was bottoming out on sources that I could read.
Oh sure, which happens. So I knew that I wanted
to do a Latin American artist and if not my
original choice, then somebody else. And then I remembered this
dude who we actually brushed up against his work in Barcelona,
even though he is not originally from Barcelona, and he
(00:45):
is a super influential figure even if he isn't released
super well known in North America outside of art circles.
His story is also kind of interesting because there's a
fun and unexpected toy Foray in it. And as I
was researching this artist, Joaquin Torres Garcia, connections to other
(01:06):
episodes that we've done just started popping up all over
the place, including one person who just seems to jump
scare in all kinds of places that I don't expect it.
I like your description of this as a jump scare.
It's just like and by the way here she is again,
yep so. Joaquin Torres Garcia was born in July twenty eighth,
(01:32):
eighteen seventy four, in Montevideo, Uruguay, which you can pronounce
at least five different ways, according yes to Miriam Webster's Dictionary.
His father, Joaquin Torres Frederio, was Catalan and his mother,
Maria Garcia Perez, was Uruguayan. The family, which included the
(01:52):
younger Joaquin's brother Gaspar and his sister Inez. They lived
outside the city center. His father was a merchant there
with a store in the Plaza de la Caretis, and
Joaquin spent a lot of time there at the store.
In terms of formal education, it seems like there was
little to none, but from a very early age, young
Joaquin was really drawn to art. This made him an
(02:15):
outlier in the family, where everyone else seemed like they
had much more practical vocations, like running shops or working
as carpenters. Yeah, his mother's side of the family in
particular had a lot of carpenters in it. When Joaquin
was seventeen, the family made a big move from Uruguay
to just north of Barcelona, Spain, and this may have
(02:37):
been the result, at least in part of Joaquin begging
his father to do so. But in addition to the
teenager's desires, the family had a very real need to
make a new start. The bank that Joaquin Torres Fredera
did business with declared bankruptcy and left the family business
with nothing, so they boarded a steamer called Chuta Denapoli
(02:59):
on June eighth and headed to Mataro, which is a
little more than thirty kilometers northeast of Barcelona along the
Spanish coastline. The family moved into an area of town
where his father's family had lived for generations, and they
actually moved into Torres Garcia's grandfather's house. Joaquin started courses
at the School of Arts and Trades, which he attended
(03:20):
for a year. He did very well in his drawing
courses in particular, and won a first place prize for
figure and landscape drawing. The family moved to Barcelona not
long after he finished his first year there. At the
age of twenty, Torres Garcia started formally studying painting at
the Sanjordia Academy of Fine Arts in Barcelona. His classes
(03:44):
were mostly at night, so he also enrolled at the
Academia Bisas, which was another private art school, and he
took classes there during the day. This is a little
confusing to me because when I looked up Academia Bisas,
it's often described as being like a preparatory school for
people to get into the fine arts school of Barcelona.
But also some people note that it has a a
(04:07):
more impressive reputation than a fine art school. So I'm
not sure what the scoop is there, just so you know.
But here's the thing, the fine arts schools of the
city actually became a place of strife for Torres Garcia artistically.
He really did not care for the traditional and conservative
style that the Academy in particular focused on. He found
(04:29):
it just restrictive and frustrating. He was not interested at
all in art that sought to replicate the real world.
His personal ideology was that art should create new worlds.
This is something that will carry through his entire life.
He also joined the art society known as the Circular
Artistique de Saint Luke, which had been founded in the
(04:50):
city in eighteen ninety three. And this group, which was
known for a very pro Catholic and anti modernism stance,
seems like a pretty odd place for touris is Garcia
because he would eventually go all in on Modernism simultaneously
to make money for himself after finishing art school, he
also worked in an area that seems counter to where
(05:11):
he would end up. He worked as an illustrator for
a while, working at Barcelona Comica and La Saeta, which
was a magazine about the theater scene of the city.
Flora's Garcia became really enamored with Impressionism during the stage
of his life and studying the work of artists like
Nre Toulouse. The Trek was very influential. In eighteen ninety seven,
(05:33):
he had his first solo exhibition, showing in the exhibition
space of one of the city's newspapers, by Van Guardia Espanola.
That year he painted a work titled Garden of the
Gallery of Fine Arts, and his rendition of wealthy patrons
milling about the space reflected the influence that Impressionism had
(05:53):
on him during this time. In June eighteen ninety seven,
a cafe called El Catre Gat the Four Cats open
in Barcelona, run by entrepreneur per Romeo, who had previously
worked at La Cha Noir in Paris and wanted to
develop a space like it in Barcelona. In this cafe
became a haven for the artists of the city, and
(06:14):
a number of now famous figures of the art world
gathered there, including Anthony Gaudi, Pablo Picasso, and Joaquin torres Garcia.
Al Catre Gat had its own magazine and the artists
of the day contributed to it. Through this gathering place,
torres Garcia would become connected to many artists, some of
whom would become future collaborators. Also, incidentally, that cafe is
(06:39):
still open and you can still visit it, so if
you want to get some art history in while you're
visiting Spain, go for it. Torres Garcia was also in
the circle of artists who would routinely meet at the
studio of sculptor and painter Julio Gonzalez, who became known
for his unique modernist metalwork. The early twentieth century was
(07:00):
a time of significant growth and change, both good and
bad for the artist. By the time he was in
his mid twenties, Joaquin was dabbling in Modern Classicism, which
dominated the work that torres Garcia painted up until his forties.
He had his second solo exhibit in the same gallery
space as his first in nineteen hundred, where this influence
(07:22):
was really starting to show. That exhibit was very well
reviewed and it's considered his first significant success as an artist.
In nineteen oh one, he started giving drawing lessons, capitalizing
on the reputation that he was building in the city.
Among his clients was a pair of sisters, Carolina and
Medlita Pina. Joaquin and Medalita fell in love, but as
(07:45):
that relationship was just beginning, Joaquin's father died and he
was grieving, but his success continued. One of his landscapes,
a painting called Fountain of Youth, was featured on the
cover of the magazine pell Enploma, a journal dedicated to
arts and literature in Catalan culture. The beliaric poet Juan
(08:06):
Alcoveri mans Pons also as Torres Garcia, to illustrate the
book of poems that he published that year that was
titled Mitiorros. Catalan author narcis Ole also had Joaquin illustrate
his book La Bofetada that same year. So he was
getting all of these commissions while simultaneously preparing another solo exhibition.
(08:28):
In just a moment, we'll get to a project that
Torres Garcia undertook with a name that'll be familiar to
longtime podcast listeners. First, though, we will pause for a
sponsor break. In nineteen oh three, Torres Garcia worked with
(08:51):
another podcast subject who we mentioned briefly earlier, and that
is Anthony Gaudi. Gaudi had been working as chief architect
on La Sagrada Famlia since eighteen eighty three, and at
the beginning of the twentieth century, he and Taurus Garcia
collaborated on stained glass windows to the structure that project.
The collaboration between the two of them not Sagrada Familia,
(09:13):
which is still under construction, although in the final stretch
to completion, but the project with the two men lasted
for four years, from nineteen oh three to nineteen oh seven,
and during that same time Torres Garcia was also working
on stained glass window design for another church, the Cathedral
of Palma de Majorca. It was also in nineteen oh
(09:34):
three that Joaquin started to put his ideas about art
out into the world through writing his first article titled
Augusta A Augusta was a treatise on his belief that
true art should not copy reality. This was the first
of many many essays, books and articles that he would
produce on art theory in his life, which is why
(09:55):
he's often labeled as a theorist in addition to an artist. Yeah,
just hundreds of things that he published. Torres Garcia also
found work as a muralist, and he was commissioned to
create mural paintings for public and private spaces, from homes
to churches and also secular public buildings. His work on
Fresco murals was something that really appealed to him because
(10:18):
of its connection with old world art. In nineteen oh four,
he was commissioned to create six large murals for the
Church of San Agustino and several for the Iglesia de
la Divina Pastora. He completed the work in nineteen oh eight,
but those works are all unfortunately lost today. The church
of San Agustino burned in nineteen thirty six and the
(10:40):
works in the Davinia Pastora were destroyed during the Spanish
Civil War. But in his time, Torres Garcia was kept
really busy with these and many other mural commissions. In
addition to the religious commissions, he was asked to decorate
the office of the Barcelona City Council Finance officer, as
well as others private homes throughout the city. In nineteen
(11:03):
oh nine, Joaquin and Menolita were married after an eight
year courtship. Not long after the marriage, he was called
to Brussels for a commission, and he lived there for
almost half a year. This commission was for the exhibisiitial
In universal Internationale de Brussels and Torres Garcia created agricultural
landscapes for the Uruguay Pavilion. While he was in Brussels,
(11:27):
he started to work on a book project that was
simply titled Brussel nineteen ten. It featured watercolor and ink
pieces that captured the seeds of Paris and Brussels as
he had seen them. That's because after finishing up his
work in Brussels, he had gone to Paris before he
returned home, and the style of art in this book
was also the basis for his next exhibition, which was
(11:49):
mounted in Barcelona. When he returned home, Joaquin and Menolita
set up a home in Lasar de DeMar, which is
near Mazaro, where his father's family was from. On April third,
nineteen eleven, the couple welcomed a daughter named Olympia Taurus
Garcia had grown notable enough that he soon had another
(12:09):
lucrative government contract. The Palau de la General Latade, a
gorgeous palace dating back to the fourteen hundreds, needed some
renovation and restoration for its new use as the seat
of the Provincial Council of Barcelona, and Joaquin was selected
to work on the project by creating several murals. This
was an important collaborative project, and to prepare for the
(12:32):
murals that he was to paint Taurus, Garcia traveled to
Italy to study fresco work there, sketching ideas as he
made his journey. There were plans for six frescoes in total,
although only four ended up being painted. As nineteen thirteen progressed,
he became fascinated with Mediterranean art and the idea that
traditional arts and crafts should be recognized and incorporated into
(12:55):
modern contexts. With that in mind, he founded the Sarius
School of Decoration and started teaching both theory and hands
on art. During this time, he was continuing to work
on his fresco for the council building. Joaquin and Menalita
also had their second child in nineteen thirteen. Their son, Augusto,
was born on June nineteenth. As Torres Garcia was working
(13:19):
on his mural plans and welcoming a new child, he
was also preparing and publishing his first book of writing
notes on art. This marked a moment where he was
diverging from the artistic ideologies of some of his friends
and supporters, as the concepts that he talked about creating
a new identity for Catalan art by using imagery from
(13:40):
the past was not really well received by everyone. No,
and that played through in the reveal of his murals,
because in September Torres Garcia's murals for the Palau de
la Generalitat were finally unveiled, and the response to them
was very, very mixed. Those four murals are titled Cataloonia Eternal,
(14:02):
the Golden Age, the Muses, and the Temporal is nothing
but a symbol. The room that houses these murals, incidentally,
is now named after the artist. But these murals use
imagery and symbology from classic Greek art as stand ins
for Catalonian peoples and concepts to create a new, unique
(14:22):
Catalonian classicism and arguments about the value of this new
style that Torres Garcia had developed or its perceived lack
of value played out in the press for weeks, but
two years later a stained glass window that he designed
for the building was also installed, so even if not
everyone liked his work, they kept hiring him. Torres Garcia
(14:43):
had decided that he also wanted to paint some large
scale murals for himself, and once the Palau project was
wrapped up, he started several at Malreposts, which was a
farmhouse that had been home to an art school called
Mondour that Woaquin had left after it was founded by
his friend Juan palal Vera. The school had originally been
(15:06):
in Saria, but torres Garcia had moved it to Tarasa,
just north of Barcelona. When the school closed due to bankruptcy,
he decided to stay on the property and make it
his home. When the interior decor work had been completed,
he moved in with his family and had a large
housewarming to show off the home and the work. At
(15:27):
the end of nineteen fifteen, he and his wife welcomed
their third child and second daughter, Ephigenia, That was on
December tenth. Throughout the nineteen teens, torres Garcia continued to
publish books and articles about art. In nineteen seventeen, Spain
went through a great deal of upheaval during World War One.
(15:49):
The country had remained neutral, but it had its own problems.
There were a variety of economic issues happening at once,
and workers' movements, encouraged by the uprising happening in Russia,
felt a sense of empowerment and strikes were looming. Meanwhile,
there was also political tension as factions wanted a variety
of different things, including autonomy for Catalonia and reformation or
(16:13):
even an end to the monarchy. There was also a
growing gap between the rich and poor, so on a
social level there was a lot of disparity, and the
military was in a state of upheaval at its highest levels.
This period is very complex. It's come up on the
show before, and we could probably do an entire series
on it, but for the purposes of today's topic, the
(16:36):
important takeaway is that this was a time of uncertainty
and there was an atmosphere in the air of danger.
As the Spanish Crisis of nineteen seventeen was playing outs,
it naturally impacted and influenced Torres Garcia. His paintings offer
reflections of what life was like in Barcelona at the
time through his unique lens. His work Barcelona Street, seen
(17:00):
painted in nineteen seventeen, shows the world of the busy
city in a Cubism influenced, flattened manner, giving viewers a
sense of disconnectedness and a city that seems simultaneously busy
but also not quite alive. After the Catalonian president Henrique
Pratt de la Riba died in August of nineteen seventeen,
(17:22):
Torres Garcia canceled all of his existing government contracts. Without
those lucrative contracts, he found himself with both time on
his hands and also a need for money, so he
started branching out into different fields. One of the areas
he started to explore was making wooden toys, and these
(17:43):
were initially to be used as teaching tools. He used
them to show students how simple pieces and shapes could
be combined to create more complex works, although his toy
making would eventually become a business on his own. Also
to start making money, he once again started giving private
art lessons. In nineteen twenty, Torres Garcia decided to travel
(18:05):
to the United States. After a brief trip with the
family to Paris, he spent the next two years in
New York and made connections with a lot of prominent
artists of the time, including Manray and Marcel Duchamp. But
while he was very much in the art scene, he
wasn't able to generate any actual income, and that was
(18:26):
obviously not a tenable situation, so he left New York
for Europe once again. Although he hadn't made any money,
he was more interested in modernism than ever, and it
became the prevalent influence on his work from that point on.
In nineteen twenty two, when he returned to Europe, he
didn't go back to Barcelona, and he never did. He
(18:48):
went instead to Italy and there he founded the Aladdin
toy Company. He actually started to do a decent bit
of business in the toy space, and he was taking
orders from big departments stores, many of them in other
countries in some cases. And his toys are interesting because
they look a lot like his other art. The forms
(19:08):
they represent are slightly abstracted and even cubist. For example,
wooden figures made to look sort of like men, feature
very squared faces, and their arms are not separated from
their body. They're cut as one continuous piece of wood,
and they're only delineated, for example, by a small stripe
of paint that hints at a cuff sitting above the hand.
(19:30):
So he was finding some business success with this toy work.
On the family front, he and Menalito welcome their fourth child, Horatio,
while they were living in Italy in nineteen twenty four,
but he wasn't painting, and it wasn't until US artist
Charles Lagasa, who was in Europe and planning a group
exhibition in Paris, encouraged him to pick up his brush
(19:51):
again that torres Garcia once again started painting. That exhibition
went very well and the positive reception to a move
to Paris in nineteen twenty six. Like many artists we
have talked about on the show in the past, torres
Garcia applied to be included in the Paris Salon, but
he was denied entry. So in nineteen twenty eight he
(20:15):
and four other artists mounted their own show titled five
Artists Refused by the Jury of the Autumn Salon. The
movement in Paris, where a lot of artists came out
in solidarity and as a consequence, Joaquin found himself with
a fresh circle of friends. Together he and several others
formed a group known as Circle e Care or Circle
(20:37):
and Square. Circle e Care had its own magazine and
as an organization, it promoted constructivism as an art movement.
And coming up, we will talk more about constructivism and
how trus Garcia implemented it in his work, but first
we will hear from the sponsors that keep the show going.
(21:05):
Constructivism became very important to Torres Garcia in the nineteen twenties.
So the movement of constructivism in art makes use of
geometric shapes and materials often used in literal building, construction,
or other industrial pursuits to create the finished work. And
this movement began in Russia in nineteen seventeen and it
(21:25):
embraced this spare, abstract esthetic that's intended to mirror the
modern world. This interest on torres Garcia's part makes sense
because it ties together the work that he was doing
with toys into the more abstract work of art. Many
of torres Garcia's most famous paintings of his constructivist period
feature what is essentially a loose grid structure, with each
(21:49):
section of that grid filled in with different images, almost
like a modernist painting of a shadow box or a
curio cabinet. Just as it seemed as though torres Garcia
had really hit a stride and found a supportive and
invigorating group of colleagues. Paris hit an economic wall in
nineteen thirty two, of course, along with a lot of
(22:11):
the rest of the world, because that Great depression had
finally made its way to Europe, and in France's capital
that meant unemployment soared, tourism really evaporated in factories shut down.
As the financial collapse played out, torres Garcia took his
family to Madrid. He and several of the artists from
his group show and Paris got another group together called
(22:33):
Grupo Constructivo, and even published several guides on art. But
Madrid really didn't keep Joaquin's attention. He started to think
about South America. In nineteen thirty four, he left Europe
behind for good, bringing Medalita and the children to his
home country of Uruguay. After living in Europe for more
than forty years, Joaquin tourres Garcia returned to Montevideo, and
(22:57):
this time he had a very specific goal. He wanted
to bring constructivism and modernism to Latin America. He believed
and taught that modern art and specifically the constructivist universalist
movement offered the world a chance to see things that
were not bound by the rules of classic aestheticism, and
so those pieces of art would enable them to access
(23:20):
a deeper understanding of the world and life as they
sought to understand the art. This was a case where
he really walked the walk in terms of wanting to
promote his ideas. He went on radio shows to talk
about them, and he wrote articles about them, and he
gave lectures, and he edited art journals, and he basically
did everything he could to promote modernism. He continued to
(23:44):
make new avenues to share his ideas about art. As
part of his vision for bringing all of the arts
together and bridging communication between the art world and the public,
he formed the Uruguay Society of Arts. He started organizing
group exhibit that showcased a wide range of Uruguayan artists
and also included foreign visitors to the country. From time
(24:06):
to time, he also started showing his work alongside that
of his son Augusto. All of the Torres Garcia children
were artistic, and three of them went on to be
artists in their own right. He became an honorary member
of the faculty at the Montevideo School of Architecture in
nineteen thirty four. He also formed a workshop called School
(24:28):
of the South, which encouraged artists to focus on their
local inspirations instead of aspiring to anything going on in Europe.
As part of his effort to teach his art theory,
he founded the Association of Constructivist Art in nineteen thirty five.
Pre Columbian art had started to really influence Torres Garcia's
(24:48):
work in the nineteen thirties, and it informed the way
that he viewed modernism. He used the Association of Constructivist
Art to share information and ideas about the future of
art and how modernism should be part of Latin American art,
and that Latin America, with all of its history, should
have a voice and its own influence on the modernist movement.
(25:10):
This mode of thinking was not well received by everyone, though.
A lot of the art scene in Uruguay was still
very devoted to the idea that the European art establishment
was superior to all the others, and all this rhetoric
about shaking everything up seemed extremist. Torres Garcia soon came
to be viewed as a firebrand of the art world.
(25:33):
He formed a Latin American version of Circle and Square,
with the motto of the group and its publication being
total intransigence against Naturalism. In nineteen thirty eight, he created
a work of sculpture called Monumento Cosmico. It's a very
famous work of art and it's a fascinating sculpture because
it looks very very much like a giant version of
(25:55):
one of his paintings, the grid is in play. This
work is essentially a giant slab of pink granite. It's
three hundred by five hundred sixty by forty five centimeters
or one hundred and eighteen by two hundred and twenty
by eighteen inches, and it features the uneven grid pattern
that he used in many of his paintings, particularly when
(26:17):
he was in Paris, and there's a symbol or image
occupying each space. This well known work is part of
the collection of the Uruguay National Museum of Visual Arts
and it remains on display in the garden there. And
some of these symbols are somewhat mystical in nature, and
that ties to a person who seems to pop up
on the show, even in places we do not expect,
(26:40):
and that is Madame Blovotsky. I just feel like she's everywhere.
Taurus Garcia had joined the Theosophy Society in the early
nineteen thirties, and he was drawn to its mystic visuals
and the idea of a universal brotherhood that the ideology
of Theosafy preached, and that falls very very much in
(27:00):
line with his efforts to unify the art world in
various ways, so it's not entirely surprising that he would
align with it. Taurus Garcia even gave a lecture at
the Theosophy Society discussing geometry and proportion, but that is
but one of roughly six hundred lectures that he gave
after moving back to Uruguay, so it's unclear if he
(27:20):
was super active in the organization or it was just
one of the many influences that he incorporated into his work.
In nineteen forty three, he opened a workshop called Taye
Torres Garcia, which focused on teaching constructivism in its curriculum.
Shortly after founding this group, he published a book titled
The Universe of Thesmo Constructivo, which included a lot of
(27:43):
his lectures and was intended to show the way art
and culture could be united. The book also featured more
than two hundred and fifty drawings by the author. Also
in nineteen forty three, he created one of his most
famous works. That's an ink sketch titled America in Ertida,
and it is, as that title hints, a crude map
(28:04):
of South America rendered upside down. A large s sits
at the top of the piece, replacing the idea of
north as the most important direction. And this too falls
very much in line with his School of the South ideology,
of which he wrote quote I have called this the
school of the South, because in reality our north is
(28:24):
the south. There must not be north for us except
in opposition to our south. Therefore we now turn the
map upside down, and then we have a true idea
of our position, and not, as the rest of the
world wishes, the point of America from now on forever
insistently points to the south, our north. In nineteen forty eight,
(28:46):
Torres Garcia had a new home built at fifty six
twelve Carmuru Street in Montevideo. He and the family moved
into the home in nineteen forty nine, but Joaquin did
not get to enjoy it for long. He died on
August eighth of nineteen forty nine. After his death, his
workshop school continued for more than a decade, run by
(29:08):
his students and supporters, and magazines continued to be published
by the organization, and it was incredibly influential in the
world of Latin American modern art before it shuddered in
the nineteen sixties. In a tragic turn of events, many
of Torres Garcia's works were destroyed in a fire. In
nineteen seventy eight. A comprehensive retrospective exhibit had been mounted
(29:32):
at the Rio de Janeiro Museum of Modern Art, and
the museum lost ninety percent of its total collection in
the blaze. In addition to the work of Torres Garcia,
there are pieces by Paul Clay, Rene Magrite, Juan Miro,
Max Ernst, and Salvador Dali were also lost. Joaquin Torres
(29:52):
Garcia can be difficult to succinctly summarize because he had
so many ideas that had at their center this sort
of push and pull of old and new concepts that
might seem at odds, but which he sought to unify.
And I found the best articulation of this quality in
my research in the writing of Alvaro Medina, who wrote
(30:14):
about him for Art Nexus, writing quote, Joaquin Torris Garcia
is a paradox. He is one of the Latin American
painters who spent the most time in Europe and the
only one who seriously proposed to forget about Europe. But
he was never a partisan of nationalist art and never
practiced such art. Unlike the Mexican muralists, who in a
(30:35):
sense were his contemporaries, the Uruguayan painter was the champion
of universalism and relentlessly criticized nativism. He criticized it and
at the same time theorized and practiced in his own
manner and imposed among his disciples in his own studio
and art based on the geometric principles of architecture, sculpture, painting, ceramics, goldwork,
(30:58):
and the textiles of the Aboriginal peoples of America. That
is Joaquin Torres Garcia, who I wish, oh how I
wish we had more of his work that we could
still look at. But because that fire happened before a
(31:18):
lot of things were captured digitally. Some things we only
have descriptions of, and we will not see them if
we didn't live at a time when they were visible,
which is a pity. I have more orange Tabby email. Okay,
this is from our listener, Rosemary, and it's titled my
Stoic Orange Tabby. Rosemary writes Hi, Ally and Tracy. I
(31:42):
love the podcast and have been listening to it for
many years. History was always one of my favorite subjects
in school, so I'm happy to be continuously expanding my knowledge.
The podcast has even taught me things about my hometown
of Los Angeles that I never knew about. In one
of your episodes, I heard the call to find an
intelligent or tabby. Well, I present to you Rusty, my
(32:03):
female orange Tuxi. She was my first cat. We adopted
her when she was six from a nearby shelter. It
took her three years to trust us, but after that
she was the sweetest girl. She knew when to cuddle
if we were sick. She was always very calm, and
she would say bless you if you sneeze. She had
her silly moments, but I think most cats do. She
(32:23):
lived to the age of twenty one and I still
miss her every day. Thank you for all the knowledge. Okay,
Russy is so cute. I am loving all of the
smart Orange Cat email, by the way, keep it coming.
It delights me. As I've said, I'm kind of in
an orange Cat's on my wish list for the future face,
so I don't care if I get a dignomor a
smart one though, I just want kitties. She's so cute, though,
(32:46):
and she has those big what's called the classic tabby swirls,
you know how the striping, like the multiple stripes is
called like a modern tabby, and the big swirly swirlies
that almost looked like targets is actually what's called the
class tabby. And she is very cute, and I'm so
glad that she gave you so many years of delight
and love and comfort and bless you. If you would
(33:09):
like to share your cats with us, or anything else
that's on your mind, you can do so at History
podcast at iHeartRadio dot com. You can also subscribe to
the show on the iHeartRadio app or anywhere you listen
to your favorite shows. Stuff you Missed in History Class
is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,
(33:32):
visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
to your favorite shows,
Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production
of iHeartRadio. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Holly
Frye and I'm Tracy V. Wilson. I started this episode
planning to talk about a different artist before I realized
(00:22):
I was bottoming out on sources that I could read.
Oh sure, which happens. So I knew that I wanted
to do a Latin American artist and if not my
original choice, then somebody else. And then I remembered this
dude who we actually brushed up against his work in Barcelona,
even though he is not originally from Barcelona, and he
(00:45):
is a super influential figure even if he isn't released
super well known in North America outside of art circles.
His story is also kind of interesting because there's a
fun and unexpected toy Foray in it. And as I
was researching this artist, Joaquin Torres Garcia, connections to other
(01:06):
episodes that we've done just started popping up all over
the place, including one person who just seems to jump
scare in all kinds of places that I don't expect it.
I like your description of this as a jump scare.
It's just like and by the way here she is again,
yep so. Joaquin Torres Garcia was born in July twenty eighth,
(01:32):
eighteen seventy four, in Montevideo, Uruguay, which you can pronounce
at least five different ways, according yes to Miriam Webster's Dictionary.
His father, Joaquin Torres Frederio, was Catalan and his mother,
Maria Garcia Perez, was Uruguayan. The family, which included the
(01:52):
younger Joaquin's brother Gaspar and his sister Inez. They lived
outside the city center. His father was a merchant there
with a store in the Plaza de la Caretis, and
Joaquin spent a lot of time there at the store.
In terms of formal education, it seems like there was
little to none, but from a very early age, young
Joaquin was really drawn to art. This made him an
(02:15):
outlier in the family, where everyone else seemed like they
had much more practical vocations, like running shops or working
as carpenters. Yeah, his mother's side of the family in
particular had a lot of carpenters in it. When Joaquin
was seventeen, the family made a big move from Uruguay
to just north of Barcelona, Spain, and this may have
(02:37):
been the result, at least in part of Joaquin begging
his father to do so. But in addition to the
teenager's desires, the family had a very real need to
make a new start. The bank that Joaquin Torres Fredera
did business with declared bankruptcy and left the family business
with nothing, so they boarded a steamer called Chuta Denapoli
(02:59):
on June eighth and headed to Mataro, which is a
little more than thirty kilometers northeast of Barcelona along the
Spanish coastline. The family moved into an area of town
where his father's family had lived for generations, and they
actually moved into Torres Garcia's grandfather's house. Joaquin started courses
at the School of Arts and Trades, which he attended
(03:20):
for a year. He did very well in his drawing
courses in particular, and won a first place prize for
figure and landscape drawing. The family moved to Barcelona not
long after he finished his first year there. At the
age of twenty, Torres Garcia started formally studying painting at
the Sanjordia Academy of Fine Arts in Barcelona. His classes
(03:44):
were mostly at night, so he also enrolled at the
Academia Bisas, which was another private art school, and he
took classes there during the day. This is a little
confusing to me because when I looked up Academia Bisas,
it's often described as being like a preparatory school for
people to get into the fine arts school of Barcelona.
But also some people note that it has a a
(04:07):
more impressive reputation than a fine art school. So I'm
not sure what the scoop is there, just so you know.
But here's the thing, the fine arts schools of the
city actually became a place of strife for Torres Garcia artistically.
He really did not care for the traditional and conservative
style that the Academy in particular focused on. He found
(04:29):
it just restrictive and frustrating. He was not interested at
all in art that sought to replicate the real world.
His personal ideology was that art should create new worlds.
This is something that will carry through his entire life.
He also joined the art society known as the Circular
Artistique de Saint Luke, which had been founded in the
(04:50):
city in eighteen ninety three. And this group, which was
known for a very pro Catholic and anti modernism stance,
seems like a pretty odd place for touris is Garcia
because he would eventually go all in on Modernism simultaneously
to make money for himself after finishing art school, he
also worked in an area that seems counter to where
(05:11):
he would end up. He worked as an illustrator for
a while, working at Barcelona Comica and La Saeta, which
was a magazine about the theater scene of the city.
Flora's Garcia became really enamored with Impressionism during the stage
of his life and studying the work of artists like
Nre Toulouse. The Trek was very influential. In eighteen ninety seven,
(05:33):
he had his first solo exhibition, showing in the exhibition
space of one of the city's newspapers, by Van Guardia Espanola.
That year he painted a work titled Garden of the
Gallery of Fine Arts, and his rendition of wealthy patrons
milling about the space reflected the influence that Impressionism had
(05:53):
on him during this time. In June eighteen ninety seven,
a cafe called El Catre Gat the Four Cats open
in Barcelona, run by entrepreneur per Romeo, who had previously
worked at La Cha Noir in Paris and wanted to
develop a space like it in Barcelona. In this cafe
became a haven for the artists of the city, and
(06:14):
a number of now famous figures of the art world
gathered there, including Anthony Gaudi, Pablo Picasso, and Joaquin torres Garcia.
Al Catre Gat had its own magazine and the artists
of the day contributed to it. Through this gathering place,
torres Garcia would become connected to many artists, some of
whom would become future collaborators. Also, incidentally, that cafe is
(06:39):
still open and you can still visit it, so if
you want to get some art history in while you're
visiting Spain, go for it. Torres Garcia was also in
the circle of artists who would routinely meet at the
studio of sculptor and painter Julio Gonzalez, who became known
for his unique modernist metalwork. The early twentieth century was
(07:00):
a time of significant growth and change, both good and
bad for the artist. By the time he was in
his mid twenties, Joaquin was dabbling in Modern Classicism, which
dominated the work that torres Garcia painted up until his forties.
He had his second solo exhibit in the same gallery
space as his first in nineteen hundred, where this influence
(07:22):
was really starting to show. That exhibit was very well
reviewed and it's considered his first significant success as an artist.
In nineteen oh one, he started giving drawing lessons, capitalizing
on the reputation that he was building in the city.
Among his clients was a pair of sisters, Carolina and
Medlita Pina. Joaquin and Medalita fell in love, but as
(07:45):
that relationship was just beginning, Joaquin's father died and he
was grieving, but his success continued. One of his landscapes,
a painting called Fountain of Youth, was featured on the
cover of the magazine pell Enploma, a journal dedicated to
arts and literature in Catalan culture. The beliaric poet Juan
(08:06):
Alcoveri mans Pons also as Torres Garcia, to illustrate the
book of poems that he published that year that was
titled Mitiorros. Catalan author narcis Ole also had Joaquin illustrate
his book La Bofetada that same year. So he was
getting all of these commissions while simultaneously preparing another solo exhibition.
(08:28):
In just a moment, we'll get to a project that
Torres Garcia undertook with a name that'll be familiar to
longtime podcast listeners. First, though, we will pause for a
sponsor break. In nineteen oh three, Torres Garcia worked with
(08:51):
another podcast subject who we mentioned briefly earlier, and that
is Anthony Gaudi. Gaudi had been working as chief architect
on La Sagrada Famlia since eighteen eighty three, and at
the beginning of the twentieth century, he and Taurus Garcia
collaborated on stained glass windows to the structure that project.
The collaboration between the two of them not Sagrada Familia,
(09:13):
which is still under construction, although in the final stretch
to completion, but the project with the two men lasted
for four years, from nineteen oh three to nineteen oh seven,
and during that same time Torres Garcia was also working
on stained glass window design for another church, the Cathedral
of Palma de Majorca. It was also in nineteen oh
(09:34):
three that Joaquin started to put his ideas about art
out into the world through writing his first article titled
Augusta A Augusta was a treatise on his belief that
true art should not copy reality. This was the first
of many many essays, books and articles that he would
produce on art theory in his life, which is why
(09:55):
he's often labeled as a theorist in addition to an artist. Yeah,
just hundreds of things that he published. Torres Garcia also
found work as a muralist, and he was commissioned to
create mural paintings for public and private spaces, from homes
to churches and also secular public buildings. His work on
Fresco murals was something that really appealed to him because
(10:18):
of its connection with old world art. In nineteen oh four,
he was commissioned to create six large murals for the
Church of San Agustino and several for the Iglesia de
la Divina Pastora. He completed the work in nineteen oh eight,
but those works are all unfortunately lost today. The church
of San Agustino burned in nineteen thirty six and the
(10:40):
works in the Davinia Pastora were destroyed during the Spanish
Civil War. But in his time, Torres Garcia was kept
really busy with these and many other mural commissions. In
addition to the religious commissions, he was asked to decorate
the office of the Barcelona City Council Finance officer, as
well as others private homes throughout the city. In nineteen
(11:03):
oh nine, Joaquin and Menolita were married after an eight
year courtship. Not long after the marriage, he was called
to Brussels for a commission, and he lived there for
almost half a year. This commission was for the exhibisiitial
In universal Internationale de Brussels and Torres Garcia created agricultural
landscapes for the Uruguay Pavilion. While he was in Brussels,
(11:27):
he started to work on a book project that was
simply titled Brussel nineteen ten. It featured watercolor and ink
pieces that captured the seeds of Paris and Brussels as
he had seen them. That's because after finishing up his
work in Brussels, he had gone to Paris before he
returned home, and the style of art in this book
was also the basis for his next exhibition, which was
(11:49):
mounted in Barcelona. When he returned home, Joaquin and Menolita
set up a home in Lasar de DeMar, which is
near Mazaro, where his father's family was from. On April third,
nineteen eleven, the couple welcomed a daughter named Olympia Taurus
Garcia had grown notable enough that he soon had another
(12:09):
lucrative government contract. The Palau de la General Latade, a
gorgeous palace dating back to the fourteen hundreds, needed some
renovation and restoration for its new use as the seat
of the Provincial Council of Barcelona, and Joaquin was selected
to work on the project by creating several murals. This
was an important collaborative project, and to prepare for the
(12:32):
murals that he was to paint Taurus, Garcia traveled to
Italy to study fresco work there, sketching ideas as he
made his journey. There were plans for six frescoes in total,
although only four ended up being painted. As nineteen thirteen progressed,
he became fascinated with Mediterranean art and the idea that
traditional arts and crafts should be recognized and incorporated into
(12:55):
modern contexts. With that in mind, he founded the Sarius
School of Decoration and started teaching both theory and hands
on art. During this time, he was continuing to work
on his fresco for the council building. Joaquin and Menalita
also had their second child in nineteen thirteen. Their son, Augusto,
was born on June nineteenth. As Torres Garcia was working
(13:19):
on his mural plans and welcoming a new child, he
was also preparing and publishing his first book of writing
notes on art. This marked a moment where he was
diverging from the artistic ideologies of some of his friends
and supporters, as the concepts that he talked about creating
a new identity for Catalan art by using imagery from
(13:40):
the past was not really well received by everyone. No,
and that played through in the reveal of his murals,
because in September Torres Garcia's murals for the Palau de
la Generalitat were finally unveiled, and the response to them
was very, very mixed. Those four murals are titled Cataloonia Eternal,
(14:02):
the Golden Age, the Muses, and the Temporal is nothing
but a symbol. The room that houses these murals, incidentally,
is now named after the artist. But these murals use
imagery and symbology from classic Greek art as stand ins
for Catalonian peoples and concepts to create a new, unique
(14:22):
Catalonian classicism and arguments about the value of this new
style that Torres Garcia had developed or its perceived lack
of value played out in the press for weeks, but
two years later a stained glass window that he designed
for the building was also installed, so even if not
everyone liked his work, they kept hiring him. Torres Garcia
(14:43):
had decided that he also wanted to paint some large
scale murals for himself, and once the Palau project was
wrapped up, he started several at Malreposts, which was a
farmhouse that had been home to an art school called
Mondour that Woaquin had left after it was founded by
his friend Juan palal Vera. The school had originally been
(15:06):
in Saria, but torres Garcia had moved it to Tarasa,
just north of Barcelona. When the school closed due to bankruptcy,
he decided to stay on the property and make it
his home. When the interior decor work had been completed,
he moved in with his family and had a large
housewarming to show off the home and the work. At
(15:27):
the end of nineteen fifteen, he and his wife welcomed
their third child and second daughter, Ephigenia, That was on
December tenth. Throughout the nineteen teens, torres Garcia continued to
publish books and articles about art. In nineteen seventeen, Spain
went through a great deal of upheaval during World War One.
(15:49):
The country had remained neutral, but it had its own problems.
There were a variety of economic issues happening at once,
and workers' movements, encouraged by the uprising happening in Russia,
felt a sense of empowerment and strikes were looming. Meanwhile,
there was also political tension as factions wanted a variety
of different things, including autonomy for Catalonia and reformation or
(16:13):
even an end to the monarchy. There was also a
growing gap between the rich and poor, so on a
social level there was a lot of disparity, and the
military was in a state of upheaval at its highest levels.
This period is very complex. It's come up on the
show before, and we could probably do an entire series
on it, but for the purposes of today's topic, the
(16:36):
important takeaway is that this was a time of uncertainty
and there was an atmosphere in the air of danger.
As the Spanish Crisis of nineteen seventeen was playing outs,
it naturally impacted and influenced Torres Garcia. His paintings offer
reflections of what life was like in Barcelona at the
time through his unique lens. His work Barcelona Street, seen
(17:00):
painted in nineteen seventeen, shows the world of the busy
city in a Cubism influenced, flattened manner, giving viewers a
sense of disconnectedness and a city that seems simultaneously busy
but also not quite alive. After the Catalonian president Henrique
Pratt de la Riba died in August of nineteen seventeen,
(17:22):
Torres Garcia canceled all of his existing government contracts. Without
those lucrative contracts, he found himself with both time on
his hands and also a need for money, so he
started branching out into different fields. One of the areas
he started to explore was making wooden toys, and these
(17:43):
were initially to be used as teaching tools. He used
them to show students how simple pieces and shapes could
be combined to create more complex works, although his toy
making would eventually become a business on his own. Also
to start making money, he once again started giving private
art lessons. In nineteen twenty, Torres Garcia decided to travel
(18:05):
to the United States. After a brief trip with the
family to Paris, he spent the next two years in
New York and made connections with a lot of prominent
artists of the time, including Manray and Marcel Duchamp. But
while he was very much in the art scene, he
wasn't able to generate any actual income, and that was
(18:26):
obviously not a tenable situation, so he left New York
for Europe once again. Although he hadn't made any money,
he was more interested in modernism than ever, and it
became the prevalent influence on his work from that point on.
In nineteen twenty two, when he returned to Europe, he
didn't go back to Barcelona, and he never did. He
(18:48):
went instead to Italy and there he founded the Aladdin
toy Company. He actually started to do a decent bit
of business in the toy space, and he was taking
orders from big departments stores, many of them in other
countries in some cases. And his toys are interesting because
they look a lot like his other art. The forms
(19:08):
they represent are slightly abstracted and even cubist. For example,
wooden figures made to look sort of like men, feature
very squared faces, and their arms are not separated from
their body. They're cut as one continuous piece of wood,
and they're only delineated, for example, by a small stripe
of paint that hints at a cuff sitting above the hand.
(19:30):
So he was finding some business success with this toy work.
On the family front, he and Menalito welcome their fourth child, Horatio,
while they were living in Italy in nineteen twenty four,
but he wasn't painting, and it wasn't until US artist
Charles Lagasa, who was in Europe and planning a group
exhibition in Paris, encouraged him to pick up his brush
(19:51):
again that torres Garcia once again started painting. That exhibition
went very well and the positive reception to a move
to Paris in nineteen twenty six. Like many artists we
have talked about on the show in the past, torres
Garcia applied to be included in the Paris Salon, but
he was denied entry. So in nineteen twenty eight he
(20:15):
and four other artists mounted their own show titled five
Artists Refused by the Jury of the Autumn Salon. The
movement in Paris, where a lot of artists came out
in solidarity and as a consequence, Joaquin found himself with
a fresh circle of friends. Together he and several others
formed a group known as Circle e Care or Circle
(20:37):
and Square. Circle e Care had its own magazine and
as an organization, it promoted constructivism as an art movement.
And coming up, we will talk more about constructivism and
how trus Garcia implemented it in his work, but first
we will hear from the sponsors that keep the show going.
(21:05):
Constructivism became very important to Torres Garcia in the nineteen twenties.
So the movement of constructivism in art makes use of
geometric shapes and materials often used in literal building, construction,
or other industrial pursuits to create the finished work. And
this movement began in Russia in nineteen seventeen and it
(21:25):
embraced this spare, abstract esthetic that's intended to mirror the
modern world. This interest on torres Garcia's part makes sense
because it ties together the work that he was doing
with toys into the more abstract work of art. Many
of torres Garcia's most famous paintings of his constructivist period
feature what is essentially a loose grid structure, with each
(21:49):
section of that grid filled in with different images, almost
like a modernist painting of a shadow box or a
curio cabinet. Just as it seemed as though torres Garcia
had really hit a stride and found a supportive and
invigorating group of colleagues. Paris hit an economic wall in
nineteen thirty two, of course, along with a lot of
(22:11):
the rest of the world, because that Great depression had
finally made its way to Europe, and in France's capital
that meant unemployment soared, tourism really evaporated in factories shut down.
As the financial collapse played out, torres Garcia took his
family to Madrid. He and several of the artists from
his group show and Paris got another group together called
(22:33):
Grupo Constructivo, and even published several guides on art. But
Madrid really didn't keep Joaquin's attention. He started to think
about South America. In nineteen thirty four, he left Europe
behind for good, bringing Medalita and the children to his
home country of Uruguay. After living in Europe for more
than forty years, Joaquin tourres Garcia returned to Montevideo, and
(22:57):
this time he had a very specific goal. He wanted
to bring constructivism and modernism to Latin America. He believed
and taught that modern art and specifically the constructivist universalist
movement offered the world a chance to see things that
were not bound by the rules of classic aestheticism, and
so those pieces of art would enable them to access
(23:20):
a deeper understanding of the world and life as they
sought to understand the art. This was a case where
he really walked the walk in terms of wanting to
promote his ideas. He went on radio shows to talk
about them, and he wrote articles about them, and he
gave lectures, and he edited art journals, and he basically
did everything he could to promote modernism. He continued to
(23:44):
make new avenues to share his ideas about art. As
part of his vision for bringing all of the arts
together and bridging communication between the art world and the public,
he formed the Uruguay Society of Arts. He started organizing
group exhibit that showcased a wide range of Uruguayan artists
and also included foreign visitors to the country. From time
(24:06):
to time, he also started showing his work alongside that
of his son Augusto. All of the Torres Garcia children
were artistic, and three of them went on to be
artists in their own right. He became an honorary member
of the faculty at the Montevideo School of Architecture in
nineteen thirty four. He also formed a workshop called School
(24:28):
of the South, which encouraged artists to focus on their
local inspirations instead of aspiring to anything going on in Europe.
As part of his effort to teach his art theory,
he founded the Association of Constructivist Art in nineteen thirty five.
Pre Columbian art had started to really influence Torres Garcia's
(24:48):
work in the nineteen thirties, and it informed the way
that he viewed modernism. He used the Association of Constructivist
Art to share information and ideas about the future of
art and how modernism should be part of Latin American art,
and that Latin America, with all of its history, should
have a voice and its own influence on the modernist movement.
(25:10):
This mode of thinking was not well received by everyone, though.
A lot of the art scene in Uruguay was still
very devoted to the idea that the European art establishment
was superior to all the others, and all this rhetoric
about shaking everything up seemed extremist. Torres Garcia soon came
to be viewed as a firebrand of the art world.
(25:33):
He formed a Latin American version of Circle and Square,
with the motto of the group and its publication being
total intransigence against Naturalism. In nineteen thirty eight, he created
a work of sculpture called Monumento Cosmico. It's a very
famous work of art and it's a fascinating sculpture because
it looks very very much like a giant version of
(25:55):
one of his paintings, the grid is in play. This
work is essentially a giant slab of pink granite. It's
three hundred by five hundred sixty by forty five centimeters
or one hundred and eighteen by two hundred and twenty
by eighteen inches, and it features the uneven grid pattern
that he used in many of his paintings, particularly when
(26:17):
he was in Paris, and there's a symbol or image
occupying each space. This well known work is part of
the collection of the Uruguay National Museum of Visual Arts
and it remains on display in the garden there. And
some of these symbols are somewhat mystical in nature, and
that ties to a person who seems to pop up
on the show, even in places we do not expect,
(26:40):
and that is Madame Blovotsky. I just feel like she's everywhere.
Taurus Garcia had joined the Theosophy Society in the early
nineteen thirties, and he was drawn to its mystic visuals
and the idea of a universal brotherhood that the ideology
of Theosafy preached, and that falls very very much in
(27:00):
line with his efforts to unify the art world in
various ways, so it's not entirely surprising that he would
align with it. Taurus Garcia even gave a lecture at
the Theosophy Society discussing geometry and proportion, but that is
but one of roughly six hundred lectures that he gave
after moving back to Uruguay, so it's unclear if he
(27:20):
was super active in the organization or it was just
one of the many influences that he incorporated into his work.
In nineteen forty three, he opened a workshop called Taye
Torres Garcia, which focused on teaching constructivism in its curriculum.
Shortly after founding this group, he published a book titled
The Universe of Thesmo Constructivo, which included a lot of
(27:43):
his lectures and was intended to show the way art
and culture could be united. The book also featured more
than two hundred and fifty drawings by the author. Also
in nineteen forty three, he created one of his most
famous works. That's an ink sketch titled America in Ertida,
and it is, as that title hints, a crude map
(28:04):
of South America rendered upside down. A large s sits
at the top of the piece, replacing the idea of
north as the most important direction. And this too falls
very much in line with his School of the South ideology,
of which he wrote quote I have called this the
school of the South, because in reality our north is
(28:24):
the south. There must not be north for us except
in opposition to our south. Therefore we now turn the
map upside down, and then we have a true idea
of our position, and not, as the rest of the
world wishes, the point of America from now on forever
insistently points to the south, our north. In nineteen forty eight,
(28:46):
Torres Garcia had a new home built at fifty six
twelve Carmuru Street in Montevideo. He and the family moved
into the home in nineteen forty nine, but Joaquin did
not get to enjoy it for long. He died on
August eighth of nineteen forty nine. After his death, his
workshop school continued for more than a decade, run by
(29:08):
his students and supporters, and magazines continued to be published
by the organization, and it was incredibly influential in the
world of Latin American modern art before it shuddered in
the nineteen sixties. In a tragic turn of events, many
of Torres Garcia's works were destroyed in a fire. In
nineteen seventy eight. A comprehensive retrospective exhibit had been mounted
(29:32):
at the Rio de Janeiro Museum of Modern Art, and
the museum lost ninety percent of its total collection in
the blaze. In addition to the work of Torres Garcia,
there are pieces by Paul Clay, Rene Magrite, Juan Miro,
Max Ernst, and Salvador Dali were also lost. Joaquin Torres
(29:52):
Garcia can be difficult to succinctly summarize because he had
so many ideas that had at their center this sort
of push and pull of old and new concepts that
might seem at odds, but which he sought to unify.
And I found the best articulation of this quality in
my research in the writing of Alvaro Medina, who wrote
(30:14):
about him for Art Nexus, writing quote, Joaquin Torris Garcia
is a paradox. He is one of the Latin American
painters who spent the most time in Europe and the
only one who seriously proposed to forget about Europe. But
he was never a partisan of nationalist art and never
practiced such art. Unlike the Mexican muralists, who in a
(30:35):
sense were his contemporaries, the Uruguayan painter was the champion
of universalism and relentlessly criticized nativism. He criticized it and
at the same time theorized and practiced in his own
manner and imposed among his disciples in his own studio
and art based on the geometric principles of architecture, sculpture, painting, ceramics, goldwork,
(30:58):
and the textiles of the Aboriginal peoples of America. That
is Joaquin Torres Garcia, who I wish, oh how I
wish we had more of his work that we could
still look at. But because that fire happened before a
(31:18):
lot of things were captured digitally. Some things we only
have descriptions of, and we will not see them if
we didn't live at a time when they were visible,
which is a pity. I have more orange Tabby email. Okay,
this is from our listener, Rosemary, and it's titled my
Stoic Orange Tabby. Rosemary writes Hi, Ally and Tracy. I
(31:42):
love the podcast and have been listening to it for
many years. History was always one of my favorite subjects
in school, so I'm happy to be continuously expanding my knowledge.
The podcast has even taught me things about my hometown
of Los Angeles that I never knew about. In one
of your episodes, I heard the call to find an
intelligent or tabby. Well, I present to you Rusty, my
(32:03):
female orange Tuxi. She was my first cat. We adopted
her when she was six from a nearby shelter. It
took her three years to trust us, but after that
she was the sweetest girl. She knew when to cuddle
if we were sick. She was always very calm, and
she would say bless you if you sneeze. She had
her silly moments, but I think most cats do. She
(32:23):
lived to the age of twenty one and I still
miss her every day. Thank you for all the knowledge. Okay,
Russy is so cute. I am loving all of the
smart Orange Cat email, by the way, keep it coming.
It delights me. As I've said, I'm kind of in
an orange Cat's on my wish list for the future face,
so I don't care if I get a dignomor a
smart one though, I just want kitties. She's so cute, though,
(32:46):
and she has those big what's called the classic tabby swirls,
you know how the striping, like the multiple stripes is
called like a modern tabby, and the big swirly swirlies
that almost looked like targets is actually what's called the
class tabby. And she is very cute, and I'm so
glad that she gave you so many years of delight
and love and comfort and bless you. If you would
(33:09):
like to share your cats with us, or anything else
that's on your mind, you can do so at History
podcast at iHeartRadio dot com. You can also subscribe to
the show on the iHeartRadio app or anywhere you listen
to your favorite shows. Stuff you Missed in History Class
is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,
(33:32):
visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
to your favorite shows,
Stuff You Missed in History Class News
Hosts And Creators
Holly Frey
Tracy Wilson
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