Pod Insights Stuff You Missed in History Class Joaquín Torres-García About this episode 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.
Transcript Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:00 Speaker 00 This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed Human.
0:04 Tracy V. Wilson? Deanna Flores is a flag football star, a trailblazer, an entrepreneur, and now host of a new podcast.
0:10 Holly Frey? In Born to Become with Deanna Flores, she's sitting down with people from every corner of culture to find the whole person behind the public identity.
0:18 Tracy V. Wilson? Every episode, you'll get to know Deanna, her guests, and even yourself a little better. No lectures, no know-it-all hosts, just real people being real.
0:26 Holly Frey? Listen to Born to Become with Deanna Flores, out now on the iHeart Radio app or wherever you get your podcasts. Created in partnership with Geico. A rare disease diagnosis can change your life, but it doesn't have to define your future. In season seven of Untold Stories: Life with a Severe Autoimmune Condition, host Martine Hackett continues the conversation with people living with MG, CIDP, and the broader rare disease community, exploring what comes after diagnosis through stories of hope, progress, and connection. Produced by Ruby Studio in partnership with Argenx. Listen on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
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1:46 Tracy V. Wilson? Studio in partnership with ViiV Healthcare. Robert, Mick, Bill, and Jessa strut back down memory lane for season two, sharing lessons on life, love, and loss. These are the kind of insights that only come from experience. So tune in to Silver Linings with The Old Gays on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Workplace chaos. We've all been there. Deadlines are slipping, projects are piling up, and suddenly you realize the missing piece is the right person. That's when you say, this is a job for sponsored jobs. With Indeed Sponsored Jobs, your job post gets a boost so you can connect with quality candidates faster. In fact, sponsored jobs posted directly on Indeed
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2:47 Holly Frey? Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production of iHeartRadio.
2:58 Holly Frey? Hello and welcome to the podcast. I'm Holly Frey.
3:00 Tracy V. Wilson? And I'm Tracy V. Wilson.
3:02 Holly Frey? I started this episode planning to talk about a different artist before I realized I was bottoming out on sources that I could read.
3:11 Tracy V. Wilson? Oh, sure.
3:12 Holly Frey? Which happened. 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 is a super influential figure, even if he isn't really 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 episodes that we've done just started popping up all
3:54 Holly Frey? over the place, including one person who just seems to jump scare in all kinds of places that I don't expect it.
4:04 Tracy V. Wilson? I like your description of this as a jump scare.
4:06 Holly Frey? It's just like, and by the way, here she is again.
4:11 Tracy V. Wilson? Yep.
4:14 Tracy V. Wilson? So Joaquin Torres Garcia was born July 28th, 1874 in Montevideo, Uruguay, which you can pronounce at least five different ways, according
4:26 Holly Frey? Yes.
4:26 Tracy V. Wilson? to Merriam-Webster Dictionary. His father, Joaquin Torres Fredera, was Catalan and his mother, Maria Garcia Perez, was Uruguayan. The family, which included the 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 Caritas 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 outlier in the family where everyone else seemed like they had much more practical vocations, like running shops or working as carpenters.
5:11 Holly Frey? Yeah, his mother's side of the family in particular had a lot of carpenters in it. When Joaquin was 17, the family made a big move from Uruguay to just north of Barcelona, Spain. And this may have 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 Chita de Napoli on June 8th and headed to Mataro, which is a little more than 30 kilometers northeast of Barcelona, along the Spanish coastline.
5:53 Holly Frey? 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.
6:02 Tracy V. Wilson? Joaquin started courses at the School of Arts and Trades, which he attended 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.
6:21 Holly Frey? At the age of 20, Torres Garcia started formally studying painting at the San Jordi Academy of Fine Arts in Barcelona. His classes were mostly at night, so he also enrolled at the Academia Bises, 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 Bises, it's often described as being like a preparatory school for people to get into the fine art school of Barcelona. But also, some people note that it has a 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 art schools of the city actually became a place of strife
7:06 Holly Frey? for Torres Garcia artistically. He really did not care for the traditional and conservative style that the academy in particular focused on. He found 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 Cercle Artistique de Saint-Luc, which had been founded in the city in 1893. And this group, which was known for a very pro-Catholic and anti-modernism stance, seems like a pretty odd place for Torres Garcia because he would eventually go all in on modernism.
7:51 Holly Frey? Simultaneously to make money for himself after finishing art school, he also worked in an area that seems counter to where he would end up. He worked as an illustrator for a while, working at Barcelona Comica and La Seta, which was a magazine about the theater scene of the city.
8:06 Tracy V. Wilson? Torres Garcia became really enamored with Impressionism during this stage of his life, and studying the work of artists like Henri Toulouse de Trecque was very influential. In 1897, he had his first solo exhibition, showing in the exhibition space of one of the city's newspapers, La Vanguardia Española. 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 on him during this time.
8:41 Holly Frey? In June 1897, a café called El Catragat, The Four Cats, opened in Barcelona, run by entrepreneur Pierre Romeu, who had previously worked at La Chanoise in Paris and wanted to develop a space like it in Barcelona. And this café became a haven for the artists of the city, and a number of now-famous figures of the art world gathered there, including Anthony Gaudí, Pablo Picasso, and Joaquin Torres-García. El Catragat had its own magazine, and the artists of the day contributed to it. Through this gathering place, Torres-García would become connected to many artists, some of whom would become future collaborators.
9:23 Holly Frey? Also, incidentally, that café is 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-García was also in the circle of artists who would routinely meet at the studio of sculptor and painter Julio González, who became known for his unique modernist metalwork.
9:45 Tracy V. Wilson? The early 20th century was a time of significant growth and change, both good and bad for the artist. By the time he was in his mid-20s, Joaquin was dabbling in modern classicism, which dominated the work that Torres-García painted up until his 40s. He had his second solo exhibit in the same gallery space as his first in 1900, where this influence was really starting to show. That exhibit was very well-reviewed, and it's considered his first significant success as an artist. In 1901, 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 Manolita Pina.
10:29 Tracy V. Wilson? Joaquin and Manolita fell in love, but as that relationship was just beginning, Joaquin's father died.
10:36 Holly Frey? 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 and Ploma, a journal dedicated to arts and literature in Catalan culture. The Belaric poet Juan Alcoveri Manzponz also asked Torres Garcia to illustrate the book of poems that he published that year that was titled Meteoros. Catalan author Narcisse Olé 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.
11:13 Tracy V. Wilson? 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.
11:25 Speaker 03 First thought is like, wow, how are we going to do all this?
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14:01 Holly Frey? Whether she's talking to an athlete on the field, a founder heading into a pitch, or a musician before a show, the conversation starts with the official bio ends.
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14:23 Holly Frey? Come curious and leave with something you can use.
14:26 Tracy V. Wilson? Listen to Born to Become with Deanna Flores out now on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts. Created in partnership with GEICO.
14:38 Tracy V. Wilson? Guess who's back in the house? The old gays return for season two of Silver Linings, their hit podcast from iHeart's Ruby Studio in partnership with ViiV Healthcare. Just wait until you hear what hosts Robert McMillan and Jesay have in store this time around. They strut back down memory lane navigating life, love, loss, and everything that shaped them along the way. And as usual, someone just might break into song. From leather bars to bathhouses, dance floors to drag brunch, nothing stays off limits. These are the kinds of insights that can only come from experience. So, listen to your elders, honey, and discover the silver linings you can take with you. All sass, zero filter, and decades of perspective from four friends proving that queer joy
15:23 Tracy V. Wilson? only gets better with age on the podcast that never gets old. Listen to Silver Linings, available on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
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16:54 Holly Frey? In 1903, Torres Garcia worked with another podcast subject who we mentioned briefly earlier, and that is Antony Gaudí. Gaudí had been working as chief architect on La Sagrada Familia since 1883. And at the beginning of the 20th century, he and Torres Garcia collaborated on stained glass windows for the structure. That project, the collaboration between the two of them, not Sagrada Familia, which is still under construction, although in the final stretch to completion. But the project with the two men lasted for four years, from 1903 to 1907. And during that same time, Torres Garcia was also working on stained glass window design for another church, the Cathedral of Palma de Mallorca.
17:37 Tracy V. Wilson? It was also in 1903 that Joaquin started to put his ideas about art out into the world through writing. His first article, titled Augusta e 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 he's often labeled as a theorist in addition to an artist.
18:04 Holly Frey? 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 of its connection with old world art. In 1904, he was commissioned to create six large murals for the Church of San Agostino and several for the Iglesia de la Divina Pastora. He completed the work in 1908, but those works are all unfortunately lost today. The Church of San Agostino burned in 1936, and the works in the Divina Pastora were
18:47 Holly Frey? 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 other private homes throughout the city.
19:07 Tracy V. Wilson? In 1909, Joaquin and Manolita 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 Exposición Universal e Internacional de Bruselas, and Torres Garcia created agricultural landscapes for the Uruguay Pavilion.
19:29 Holly Frey? While he was in Brussels, he started to work on a book project that was simply titled "Brusel 1910." It featured watercolor and ink pieces that captured the scenes 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 mounted in Barcelona when he returned home.
19:56 Tracy V. Wilson? Joaquin and Manolita set up a home in Belasar de Mar, which is near Mataro, where his father's family was from. On April 3, 1911, the couple welcomed a daughter named Olympia.
20:09 Holly Frey? Torres Garcia had grown notable enough that he soon had another lucrative government contract. The Palau de la Generalitat, a gorgeous palace dating back to the 1400s, 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 murals that he was to paint, Torres 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.
20:50 Tracy V. Wilson? As 1913 progressed, he became fascinated with Mediterranean art and the idea that traditional arts and crafts should be recognized and incorporated into modern contexts. With that in mind, he founded the Saria School of Decoration and started teaching both theory and hands-on art.
21:10 Tracy V. Wilson? During this time, he was continuing to work on his fresco for the council building. Joaquin and Metalita also had their second child in 1913. Their son Augusto was born on June 19. As Torres Garcia was working 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 the past, was not really well received by everyone.
21:49 Holly Frey? 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 Catalunya Eternal, 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 Catalonian classicism. And arguments about the value of this new style that Torres Garcia had developed,
22:34 Holly Frey? 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.
22:47 Tracy V. Wilson? Torres Garcia 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 Mont Repose, which was a farmhouse that had been home to an art school called Mondor that Joaquin had led after it was founded by his friend Juan Palaver. The school had originally been in Sarria, but Torres Garcia had moved it to Terrassa, 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.
23:32 Tracy V. Wilson? At the end of 1915, he and his wife welcomed their third child and second daughter, Evgenia. That was on December 10. Throughout the 19 teens, Torres Garcia continued to publish books and articles about art.
23:48 Holly Frey? In 1917, Spain went through a great deal of upheaval. During World War I, 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 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.
24:33 Holly Frey? 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 important takeaway is that this was a time of uncertainty and there was an atmosphere in the air of danger.
24:48 Tracy V. Wilson? As the Spanish crisis of 1917 was playing out, 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 Scene, painted in 1917, 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, Enrique Prat de la Riba, died in August of 1917, Torres Garcia canceled all of his existing government contracts.
25:32 Holly Frey? 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 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.
26:07 Tracy V. Wilson? In 1920, Torres Garcia decided to travel 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 Man Ray 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 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.
26:46 Holly Frey? In 1922, when he returned to Europe, he didn't go back to Barcelona, and he never did. He 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 department 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 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
27:27 Holly Frey? of wood, and they're only delineated, for example, by a small stripe of paint that hints at a cuff sitting above the hand. So he was finding some business success with this toy work. On the family front, he and Manolito welcomed their fourth child, Horatio, while they were living in Italy in 1924. But he wasn't painting. And it wasn't until US artist Charles Legassa, who was in Europe and planning a group exhibition in Paris, encouraged him to pick up his brush again, that Torres Garcia once again started painting.
28:00 Tracy V. Wilson? That exhibition went very well, and the positive reception led to a move to Paris in 1926. 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 1928, he and four other artists mounted their own show, titled Five Artists Refused by the Jury of the Autumn Salon. This was a 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 Cercle et Carre,
28:42 Tracy V. Wilson? or Circle and Square. Cercle et Carre had its own magazine, and as an organization, it promoted constructivism as an art movement.
28:51 Holly Frey? And coming up, we will talk more about constructivism and how Torres Garcia implemented it in his work. But first, we will hear from the sponsors that keep the show going.
29:04 Holly Frey? Deanna Flores, flag football star, trailblazer, broadcaster, and entrepreneur, knows what pressure feels like. She knows what it takes to step up in the moment, and she knows that even the biggest achievement is never the end of the story.
29:17 Tracy V. Wilson? In the new podcast, Born to Become with Deanna Flores, she's sitting down with people from every corner of culture, including sports, business, wellness, and entertainment, to find the whole person behind the public identity.
29:29 Holly Frey? Whether she's talking to an athlete on the field, a founder heading into a pitch, or a musician before a show, the conversation starts with the official bio ends.
29:38 Tracy V. Wilson? Every episode, Deanna shares her own experiences, questions, and even doubts. Her guests learn from her, she learns from them, and you might pick up something along the way. No lectures, no know-it-all host, just real people being real.
29:50 Holly Frey? Come curious and leave with something you can use.
29:53 Tracy V. Wilson? Listen to Born to Become with Deanna Flores out now on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts. Created in partnership with GEICO.
30:06 Tracy V. Wilson? Guess who's back in the house? The old gays return for season two of Silver Linings, their hit podcast from iHeart's Ruby Studio in partnership with ViiV Healthcare. Just wait until you hear what hosts Robert McMillan and Jesay have in store this time around. They strut back down memory lane navigating life, love, loss, and everything that shaped them along the way. And as usual, someone just might break into song. From leather bars to bathhouses, dance floors to drag brunch, nothing stays off limits. These are the kinds of insights that can only come from experience. So, listen to your elders, honey, and discover the silver linings you can take with you. All sass, zero filter, and decades of perspective from four friends proving that queer joy
30:51 Tracy V. Wilson? only gets better with age on the podcast that never gets old. Listen to Silver Linings, available on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
31:05 Tracy V. Wilson? For any small business owner, there's a moment when you realize the next hire could be the difference between staying busy and actually growing. The challenge is finding the right person without wasting time sorting through candidates who aren't the right fit. That's where Indeed Sponsored Jobs comes in. When workplace chaos hits and you need someone who can step in and make a difference, this is a job for sponsored jobs. It helps put your job in front of candidates who match the criteria that matter most to you, whether that's skills, experience, certifications, or location. And you're certainly not alone in using Indeed. Join the 3.3 million employers worldwide that use Indeed to connect with quality talent that fits their needs. That's millions of businesses turning to Indeed to help solve hiring challenges
31:49 Tracy V. Wilson? and find people who can help drive results. Spend less time searching and more time actually interviewing candidates who check all your boxes. Less stress, less time, more results. Get your $75 sponsored job credit today at indeed.com/podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Hiring now, then this is a job for Indeed Sponsored Jobs.
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33:22 Holly Frey? Constructivism became very important to Torres Garcia in the 1920s. 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 1917, and it embraced this spare, abstract aesthetic 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
34:03 Holly Frey? is essentially a loose grid structure, with each section of that grid filled in with different images, almost like a modernist painting of a shadow box or a curio cabinet.
34:14 Tracy V. Wilson? 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 1932.
34:27 Tracy V. Wilson? Of course, along with a lot of the rest of the world because the Great Depression had finally made its way to Europe. And in France's capital, that meant unemployment soared, tourism really evaporated, and 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 in Paris got another group together called 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 1934, he left Europe behind for good, bringing Manolita and the children to his home country of Uruguay.
35:08 Holly Frey? After living in Europe for more than 40 years, Joaquin Torres Garcia returned to Montevideo. And 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 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
35:52 Holly Frey? gave lectures, and he edited art journals, and he basically did everything he could to promote modernism.
36:00 Tracy V. Wilson? He continued to 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 exhibits that showcased a wide range of Uruguayan artists and also included foreign visitors to the country from time 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 1934.
36:43 Tracy V. Wilson? He also formed a workshop called School of the South, which encouraged artists to focus on their local inspirations instead of aspiring to anything going on in Europe.
36:54 Holly Frey? As part of his effort to teach his art theory, he founded the Association of Constructivist Art in 1935. Pre-Columbian art had started to really influence Torres Garcia's work in the 1930s, 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.
37:28 Tracy V. Wilson? 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. He formed a Latin American version of Circle and Square, with the motto of the group and its publication being "Total Intransigence Against Naturalism."
38:01 Holly Frey? In 1938, 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 one of his paintings. The grid is in play. This work is essentially a giant slab of pink granite. It's 300 by 560 by 45 centimeters, or 118 by 220 by 18 inches. And it features the uneven grid pattern that he used in many of his paintings, particularly when 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,
38:45 Holly Frey? 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, and that is Madame Blavatsky.
39:00 Holly Frey? I just feel like she's everywhere. Torres Garcia had joined the Theosophy Society in the early 1930s, and he was drawn to its mystic visuals and the idea of a universal brotherhood that the ideology of theosophy preached. And that falls very much in line with his efforts to unify the art world in various ways. So it's not entirely surprising that he would align with it. Torres Garcia even gave a lecture at the Theosophy Society discussing geometry and proportion. But that is but one of roughly 600 lectures that he gave after moving back to Uruguay. So it's unclear if he was super active in the organization, or it was just one of the many influences that he incorporated into his work.
39:44 Tracy V. Wilson? In 1943, he opened a workshop called Tae Torres Garcia, which focused on teaching constructivism in its curriculum. Shortly after founding this group, he published a book titled Universismo Constructivo, which included a lot of his lectures and was intended to show the way art and culture could be united. The book also featured more than 250 drawings by the author.
40:10 Holly Frey? Also in 1943, he created one of his most famous works. That's an ink sketch titled America Invertida. And it is, as that title hints, a crude map 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 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.
40:55 Holly Frey? The point of America from now on, forever, insistently points to the south, our north."
41:02 Tracy V. Wilson? In 1948, Torres Garcia had a new home built at 5612 Caramuru Street in Montevideo. He and the family moved into the home in 1949, but Joaquin did not get to enjoy it for long. He died on August 8th of 1949.
41:20 Holly Frey? After his death, his workshop school continued for more than a decade, run by 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 shuttered in the 1960s.
41:38 Tracy V. Wilson? In a tragic turn of events, many of Torres Garcia's works were destroyed in a fire in 1978. A comprehensive retrospective exhibit had been mounted at the Rio de Janeiro Museum of Modern Art, and the museum lost 90% of its total collection in the blaze. In addition to the work of Torres Garcia, there are pieces by Paul Clay, Rene Magritte, Juan Miro, Max Ernst, and Salvador Dali were also lost.
42:08 Holly Frey? Joaquin Torres 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 about him for Art Nexus, writing, quote, "Joaquin Torres 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
42:48 Holly Frey? practiced such art. Unlike the Mexican muralists, who in a 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 an art based on the geometric principles of architecture, sculpture, painting, ceramics, goldwork, and the textiles of the Aboriginal peoples of America."
43:21 Holly Frey? That is Joaquin Torres Garcia.
43:22 Tracy V. Wilson? Mm hmm.
43:24 Holly Frey? Uh, who I wish, oh, how I wish we had more of his work that we could still look at.
43:33 Tracy V. Wilson? Yeah.
43:33 Holly Frey? But because that fire happened before a lot of things were captured digitally.
43:38 Tracy V. Wilson? Mm hmm.
43:39 Holly Frey? 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, uh, which is a pity. I have more orange tabby email.
43:49 Tracy V. Wilson? Yay.
43:53 Holly Frey? Uh, this is from our listener, Rosemary, and it's titled, My Stoic Orange Tabby. Rosemary writes, hi, Holly and Tracy. I 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 orange tabby. Well, I present to you Rusty, my female orange tuxie. 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
44:34 Holly Frey? calm and she would say bless you if you sneezed. She had her silly moments, but I think most cats do. She lived to the age of 21 and I still miss her every day. Thank you for all the knowledge. Okay, Rusty 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 a orange cats on my wish list for the future phase, so, um, I don't care if I get a ding dong or a smart one, though. I just want kitties. She's so cute, though, and she has those big, um, what's called the classic tabby swirls. You know how the, the striping, like the multiple stripes is called like a modern tabby and the big swirly swirlies that almost look like targets is actually what's
45:16 Holly Frey? called a classic 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 yous. Uh, if you would like to share your cats with us or anything else that's on your mind, you can do so at [email protected] . You can also subscribe to the show on the iHeartRadio app or anywhere you listen to your favorite shows.
45:44 Tracy V. Wilson? Stuff You Missed in History Class is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
45:58 Tracy V. Wilson? Deanna Flores is a flag football star, a trailblazer, an entrepreneur, and now host of a new podcast.
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