Lola Mora

Lola Mora
Lola Mora in 1903
Born	Dolores Candelaria Mora Vega (1866-11-17)November 17, 1866 El Tala, Argentina
Died	June 7, 1936(1936-06-07) (aged 69) Buenos Aires, Argentina
Resting place	La Chacarita Cemetery
Education	Giulio Monteverde
Known for	Sculpture
Movement	Classicism

Dolores Candelaria Mora Vega de Hernández or Dolores Mora Vega (17 November 1866 – 7 June 1936), known as Lola Mora, was a sculptor, born in a barn in the province of Salta, Argentina, though generally considered native to Trancas, province of Tucumán, where she was recorded and baptized. She is known today as a rebel and a pioneer of women in her artistic field.

Biography

Lola Mora was the daughter of Romualdo Alejandro Mora, a prosperous landowner of Tucumán and Regina Vega. She was also a goddaughter of Nicolás Avellaneda and a protégé of Julio Argentino Roca.

Monument to the gaucho, one of a series along the Monument to the Flag, Rosario.

The Nereids Fountain, Buenos Aires, Argentina

At 20 years of age she began painting portraits, but soon turned to sculpting marble and granite. She studied art in her home province and then, with a scholarship, in Rome, Italy, where she created her greatest works, some of them by request of the Argentine government. In 1900 she was charged with creating two bas-reliefs for the Historical House of Tucumán (seat of Argentina's Declaration of Independence of 1816).

Her style and exposure were controversial and rebellious. In 1903 her The Nereids Fountain, created for the city of Buenos Aires, met bureaucratic problems at the city's Deliberative Council, which had the sculpture moved from place to place.

Near the end of her life, she did some extravagant business (such as financing petroleum surveys in Salta), and then retired with only a pension to support herself. After her death in Buenos Aires, in poverty and obscurity, friends of hers burned her letters, mementos and personal diaries.

Although it is not commonly known, Lola Mora obtained various patents. One included a system to project films without a screen (using a column of vapor), as well as systems for mining.

Works

Monument to Liberty along the Monument to the Flag in Rosario.

Some of Lola Mora's works are:

• The above mentioned bass-reliefs at the House of Tucumán, with the themes of the May Revolution's First National Government and the Declaration of Independence.
• A Statue of Liberty, also in San Miguel de Tucumán.
• The Nereids Fountain, now located at Costanera Sur, Buenos Aires, and the Avellaneda Memorial.
• Several sculpture groups placed in the historic center of Rosario, flanking the way to the propylaeum of the National Flag Memorial.
• Four allegoric sculptures called Peace, Justice, Liberty and Progress, originally created for the National Congress building, but then placed around the building of the Government House of San Salvador de Jujuy.

Sources

• VisiteTuc.com - A site about Tucumán.
• Practicosas.com.ar - A women's site with a romantic biography.
• Municipality of Jujuy - Official website.
• Universidad Nacional de Rosario - Pictures of the Oath Passage in Rosario, flanked by Lola Mora's sculptures.

External links

Media related to Lola Mora at Wikimedia Commons