Joaquin Torres Garcia was born in Montevideo, Uruguay in the year 1874. He then moved to Spain in 17 years later in 1891. For his artistic education Joaquin Garcia attended the Baixas Academy located in Barcelona, Spain. From an early age Torres knew he wanted to become an artist but didn’t think Uruguay could provide him with a good education so he left to study in Barcelona, Spain.
Worked with famed architect Antonio Gaudi in projects restoring old churches.
Over his career completed several public commissions and murals.
Joaquin Torres Garcia was put on the 1998 5 peso banknote in Peru. Below is an example of the currency.
In the clip below we visit a museum named for the artist located in his hometown of Montevideo, Uruguay.
Garcia is very unique in that many works were destroyed by a fire at the Museum of Modern Art in Rio De Janiero in 1978. At the time a major exhibition was being held for the artist at the museum.
1913 had a book published that explained the causes behind his theories on art. He also started a school this same year to teach his principles, but the school closed to due to bankruptcy the following year.
In 1917 he started working with a new medium, toymaking and the production of toys. In 1920 the artist took off for Paris, France never to return to Barcelona, Spain in his lifetime. The artist would make his way to New York City and then head for Italy to start his toymaking business. The name of his company was the Aladdin Toy Company.
The movement that is most associated with Garcia is contructivism.
The artist would move from Paris back to Uruguay and was celebrated after having been accepted into the celebrity painter role in Europe.
price range information: The artist is in very high demand and in May a work sold at Sotheby’ for $1.4 million dollars. Prices start at $4,000 for the most part.
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