Luis Torralva | Biography

Luis Torralva was born in Santiago de Chile on March 13, 1902. He got a degree as an architect at the University of Chile, where he had his first contact with art and sculpture.In Paris, was a disciple of Emile-Antoine Bourdelle from 1926 to 1929. It was then that he began to unleash his creative sensibility: almost all of its life-size sculptures date from that time of his life.

Though he preserved and respected the classical style, each of his works has its own style. Through art he poured his deepest feelings. He was inspired by a huge variety of subjects: the figure of woman - he always admired women – he captured life situations of extreme pain, as Chagrin ("Sadness"), The Guilt (“La Culpa”), Nostalgia, Escape (“Evasión”), among others. He also ventured into religious themes, such as the Inquisition in Torquemada, and Buddhism, with Siddartha. He was also captivated by other aspects of human life: greed, begging and uprooting.

Never profited from his art nor accepted students. He made some exhibitions, one in Paris and four in Buenos Aires, although it was not his primary objective to make his work known. In 1936, he returned to Argentina, he brought his work with him and opened a sculpture studio in the neighborhood of Belgrano, where he continued to dedicate himself to sculpture with uninterrupted passion until his death on May 20, 1985.