Rogelio Yrurtia (December 6, 1879 – March 4, 1950) was a renowned

Argentine Argentines, Argentinians or Argentineans are people from Argentina. This connection may be residential, legal, historical, or cultural. For most Argentines, several (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of their ...

sculptor of the Realist school.

Life and work

Born in

Buenos Aires Buenos Aires, controlled by the government of the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires, is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Argentina. It is located on the southwest of the Río de la Plata. Buenos Aires is classified as an Alpha− glob ...

Argentina Argentina, officially the Argentine Republic, is a country in the southern half of South America. It covers an area of , making it the List of South American countries by area, second-largest country in South America after Brazil, the fourt ...

to Basque immigrants in 1879, Rogelio Yrurtia enrolled in the local Society for the Promotion of Fine Arts in 1899. A talented student, he quickly earned a scholarship on which he traveled to

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 ...

. There, he attended the prestigious Académie Julien, where he was apprenticed under Jules-Felix Coutan. Securing his first exhibition at the National Society of French Artists in 1903, he obtained a Grand Prize at the 1904

Louisiana Purchase Exposition The Louisiana Purchase Exposition, informally known as the St. Louis World's Fair, was an World's fair, international exposition held in St. Louis, St. Louis, Missouri, United States, from April 30 to December 1, 1904. Local, state, and federa ...

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. Yrurtia returned to Buenos Aires in 1905, where he presented a number of exhibitions and, in 1907, was commissioned to create a monument to 1820s-era Argentine statesman

Manuel Dorrego Manuel Dorrego (11 June 1787 – 13 December 1828) was an Argentine statesman and soldier. He was governor of Buenos Aires in 1820, and then again from 1827 to 1828. Early life and education Dorrego was born in Buenos Aires on 11 June 1787 t ...

. Relocating to

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, his work earned him a Grand Prize at the 1911 International Arts Exposition there. Upon his return to Buenos Aires in 1916, Yrurtia was commissioned to sculpt a likeness of

Bernardino Rivadavia Bernardino de la Trinidad González Rivadavia (May 20, 1780 – September 2, 1845) was the first President of Argentina, then called the United Provinces of the Río de la Plata, from February 8, 1826 to June 27, 1827. He was educated at th ...

, the first Constitutional

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, for a

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planned in his honor for

Plaza Miserere Plaza Miserere is one of the main plazas (squares) of Buenos Aires, Argentina. It is located alongside the Estación Once, Once de Septiembre Station of the Ferrocarril Domingo Faustino Sarmiento (Sarmiento railroad) in the heart of the Balvanera ...

(it's worth noting that Rivadavia, who died in exile in 1845, had requested that his remains ''not'' return to Argentina). Continuing to exhibit successfully in Argentina and abroad, the city of Buenos Aires commissioned him for the creation of a monument to grace a median plaza along Paseo Colón, a major thoroughfare south of downtown. The monument, ''Ode to Labour'', was inaugurated in 1927 and stands as Yrurtia's most ambitious work, remaining arguably his best-known. Industrialist and philanthropist Carlos Delcasse commissioned Yrurtia for his crypt in the Buenos Aires suburb of Vicente López, which the noted sculptor completed in 1936. The work's highlight, ''Justice'', was created at Delcasse's request; though not a jurist, Delcasse considered himself a "friend of the court." The sculpture was reproduced in

bronze Bronze is an alloy consisting primarily of copper, commonly with about 12–12.5% tin and often with the addition of other metals (including aluminium, manganese, nickel, or zinc) and sometimes non-metals (such as phosphorus) or metalloid ...

for the Argentine Supreme Court. Creating a ''

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'' for the 1937 grand opening of the Juan B. Castagnino Fine Arts Museum in

Rosario Rosario () is the largest city in the central provinces of Argentina, Argentine province of Santa Fe Province, Santa Fe. The city, located northwest of Buenos Aires on the west bank of the Paraná River, is the third-most populous city in the ...

, Yrurtia became one of the founding members of the National Academy of Fine Arts in 1938 and he continued to exhibit periodically, working from his

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home in the Belgrano section of Buenos Aires. Yrurtia died there in 1950, bequeathing his home as a museum. ''The Boxers'', one of his last works, stands in the central courtyard. File:CantoAlTrabajo003.JPG, ''Ode to Labour'' File:Canto al trabajo (frag3)-Yrurtia.jpg, ''Ode to Labour'' – detail File:Estatua Rivadavia Plaza Miserere.JPG, Monument to Bernardino Rivadavia File:CasaDeYrurtia015.jpg, ''The Boxers'', Yrurtia Museum File:Buenos_aires_yrurtia_dorrego_7_DSC_3810.jpg, ''Alegoría de la Fatalidad'' (1926), part of Monument to Manuel Dorrego, Buenos Aires

References

ArteSur:Rogelio Yrurtia
{{DEFAULTSORT:Yrurtia, Rogelio 1879 births 1950 deaths Argentine people of Basque descent Artists from Buenos Aires Argentine sculptors Argentine male artists Argentine male sculptors 20th-century sculptors