Pablo Eduardo is a Bolivian sculptor. He creates a wide variety of sculptures for many purposes. Although he sculpts in many different countries, most of his major works have been made in the United States, England, and
Bolivia
Bolivia, officially the Plurinational State of Bolivia, is a landlocked country located in central South America. The country features diverse geography, including vast Amazonian plains, tropical lowlands, mountains, the Gran Chaco Province, w ...
.
Introduction
With important commissions in the United States, South America and Europe, Bolivian born sculptor Pablo Eduardo remains largely unknown to the general public and the art world establishment. Despite a large body of work in the hands of major public institutions and private collectors, Eduardo has been a well-kept secret for most of his professional life. His work is rooted in the figurative tradition of
Renaissance
The Renaissance ( , ) is a Periodization, period of history and a European cultural movement covering the 15th and 16th centuries. It marked the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and was characterized by an effort to revive and sur ...
and
Baroque
The Baroque ( , , ) is a Western Style (visual arts), style of Baroque architecture, architecture, Baroque music, music, Baroque dance, dance, Baroque painting, painting, Baroque sculpture, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished from ...
sculpture and the work of Michelangelo, Leonardo and Bernini specifically. Thus his output reflects a strong interest in representational work of the highest order.
Biographical and educational background
Pablo Eduardo, born in
La Paz
La Paz, officially Nuestra Señora de La Paz (Aymara language, Aymara: Chuqi Yapu ), is the seat of government of the Bolivia, Plurinational State of Bolivia. With 755,732 residents as of 2024, La Paz is the List of Bolivian cities by populati ...
, Bolivia in 1969, lives and works in
Gloucester, Massachusetts
Gloucester ( ) is a city in Essex County, Massachusetts, United States. It sits on Cape Ann and is a part of North Shore (Massachusetts), Massachusetts's North Shore. The population was 29,729 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 U.S. Census. ...
. His interest in art as a young child is tied to early pottery classes he attended with his mother. As a young adult, Eduardo left Bolivia behind and embarked on a course of study and training. After travels in Europe and a year at the
Studio Arts Center International in Florence, Italy from 1989 to 1990, he attended The School of the
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
The Museum of Fine Arts (often abbreviated as MFA Boston or MFA) is an art museum in Boston, Massachusetts. It is the list of largest art museums, 20th-largest art museum in the world, measured by public gallery area. It contains 8,161 painting ...
(MA), and graduated from
Tufts University
Tufts University is a private research university in Medford and Somerville, Massachusetts, United States, with additional facilities in Boston and Grafton, as well as Talloires, France. Tufts also has several Doctor of Physical Therapy p ...
, where he received a Bachelor of Fine Arts in 1994. From 1990 to 1992, he completed Anatomical Studies at Tufts University Medical School in Boston where he focused on the dissection of the human body. This concentration provides a direct link to
Michelangelo
Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni (6March 147518February 1564), known mononymously as Michelangelo, was an Italian sculptor, painter, architect, and poet of the High Renaissance. Born in the Republic of Florence, his work was inspir ...
and
Leonardo and the humanistic development of an art based on a clear physical understanding of bone, muscle and sinew.
Context
Much of what Eduardo brings to his work can be traced to his birth and upbringing in Bolivia and the traditions of twentieth century
Latin American art
Latin American art is the combined artistic expression of Mexico, Central America, the Caribbean, and South America, as well as Latin Americans living in other regions.
The art has roots in the many different Indigenous peoples of the Americas, i ...
, including an affinity for hyperrealism and the intense emotionalism to which surrealism often subscribes. Pablo partakes of the New World's hybrid culture and the strong influence – aesthetic and intellectual – of
European Enlightenment
The Age of Enlightenment (also the Age of Reason and the Enlightenment) was a European intellectual and philosophical movement active from the late 17th to early 19th century. Chiefly valuing knowledge gained through rationalism and empirici ...
ideals, which helped forge the independent countries of the Americas in the nineteenth century. His generation is perhaps the last to include individuals who experienced the power of this link in Latin America. Indeed, many of his peers had already shifted their attention away from Paris and Rome to the world of the New York art scene on the one hand and to the autochthonous cultures of Latin America on the other.
Of his art and place in history Eduardo says the following: "For me sculpture conveys a force and poetry that echoes a sense of permanence. My work has its grounding in both
classical technique and representation. I cannot, however, ignore my times or the culture that I come from, and so my work is a marriage in progress of all that is me. More importantly, however, is the fact my work has the freedom to go where it wants without hindrance. The only guiding imperative is to work honestly towards the kind of quality in sculpture that springs from the dedicated application of standards revealed through the work itself and its progressive development."
Work
Eduardo's oeuvre comprises a broad range of sculptural work including related drawings and
maquette
A ''maquette'' is a scale model or rough draft of an unfinished sculpture or work of architecture. The term is a loanword from French. An equivalent term is ''bozzetto'', a diminutive of the Italian word for a sketch.
Sculpture
A maquette ...
s. His finished commissions are primarily cast bronze or carved stone. There are bas-reliefs and portrait busts, monumental figurative sculptural works in private and public settings including corporate collections, educational institutions, religious settings and public spaces. The figures he is asked to portray – e.g.
Charles Darwin
Charles Robert Darwin ( ; 12 February 1809 – 19 April 1882) was an English Natural history#Before 1900, naturalist, geologist, and biologist, widely known for his contributions to evolutionary biology. His proposition that all speci ...
,
St. Ignatius of Loyola,
Cesar Chavez
Cesario Estrada Chavez (; ; March 31, 1927 – April 23, 1993) was an American labor leader and civil rights activist. Along with Dolores Huerta and lesser known Gilbert Padilla, he co-founded the National Farm Workers Association (NFWA), ...
– are historically transformational. As a public artist, his projects are often collaborative and provide the opportunity to partner with architects and landscape architects. A good example is the
Mayor Kevin White Tribute in Boston, Massachusetts, where he worked closely with the well-established firm of Halvorson Design Partnership to design the space that surrounds the monumental nine-foot bronze figure of Mayor White. His contributions to civic spaces in New England are significant as are those in South America. With the technical skill that allows him to imbue clay and bronze with the breath of life, Eduardo allows the viewer to imagine a place for tradition within the revolution that is always a part of contemporary art in the western world. A major example of his work is the monumental 10-foot bronze figure of St. Ignatius of Loyola located on the campus of
Boston College
Boston College (BC) is a private university, private Catholic Jesuits, Jesuit research university in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1863 by the Society of Jesus, a Catholic Religious order (Catholic), religious order, t ...
. The figure is earthbound, but clearly caught in an ascending vortex of movement, which transcends its material.
List of major works
Sir Thomas More, Bronze, Boston College, Chestnut Hill, MA, 2012
Charles Darwin, Bronze monument and plaza, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratories, Cold Spring Harbor, NY, 2010
Statue of Cesar Chavez, Bronze monument and plaza, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, 2007
Mayor Kevin White Tribute, Dock Square Plaza with Bronze Sculpture, Faneuil Hall, Boston, MA, 2006
Harold Connolly, US Olympian, Small Plaza with Bronze Sculpture, Brighton, MA, 2005
Brian Honan, Memorial to Boston City Councilor, Bronze bas-relief, Honan Public Library, Allston-Brighton, MA, 2007
St. Ignatius of Loyola, Bronze monument and plaza, Boston College, Chestnut Hill, MA, 2005
Governor Lincoln Almond, Bronze portrait relief, University of Rhode Island, Kingston, RI, 2003
Christiana Carteaux Bannister, Bronze portrait bust, Rhode Island State House, Providence, RI, 2002
Elizabeth Baffum Chase, Bronze portrait bust, Rhode Island State House, Providence, RI, 2002
Fallen Angel "Paradise Lost," Bronze and Stone, W. Bolin, London, England, 2001
Jobab, Bronze and Stone, State of the Art Gallery, Ithaca, NY, 1998
Archangel Michael, Bronze and stone, for L. Mercado, La Paz, Bolivia, 1997
Tomb of Mario Mercado, Bronze and Stone, La Paz, Bolivia, 1994
Three Sculpted Doorways, Bronze and stone, main entrance to the Iglesia Nuestro Señor de la Exaltación, La Paz, Bolivia, 1996
Sarcophagus of a Dead Christ, Bronze, glass, wood, plaster, Iglesia Nuestro Señor de la Exaltación, La Paz, Bolivia, 2001
Marcelo Quiroga Santa Cruz Memorial and Statue, Bronze, Plaza, National Secretary of Culture, La Paz, Bolivia, 2005
Arthur Stickney, Portrait Bust, Bronze, Private Collection, 2002
William B. Gould,
Dedham, Massachusetts
Dedham ( ) is a New England town, town in, and the county seat of, Norfolk County, Massachusetts, United States. Located on Boston's southwestern border, the population was 25,364 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census.
First settled by E ...
, 2023
References
External links
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Eduardo, Pablo
American sculptors
Living people
Bolivian emigrants to the United States
Maryland Institute College of Art alumni
Tufts University alumni
School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts alumni
Rhode Island School of Design alumni
People from Gloucester, Massachusetts
Year of birth missing (living people)
Magic realist artists
Tufts University School of Medicine alumni