Joaquín Torres García (1874-1949) was one of the most influential Uruguayan avant-garde artists of the 20th century. Born in Montevideo, he studied Fine Art in Barcelona and worked, among other commissions, on the window murals of Gaudi’s Sagrada Familia. After travelling with his family to Paris, New York and Italy, combining his painting activities and a toy business, he settled in Paris in 1926 where he co-founded the abstract and constructivist artists’ group Cercle et Carré, and became an important theorist of constructivism. In 1934 he returned to Uruguay where he introduced his progressive ideas and theories, combining them with native Latin American elements. He taught and published extensively on “Constructive Universalism” and organized group exhibitions and workshops. He has been and remains immensely influential on whole generations of modern Uruguayan artists.
