Gonzalo Fonseca

He originally studied to be an architect at the University of Montevideo, but discovered modern art in 1942 after working in the Taller Torres-Garcia workshop.

While working at the Torres-Garcia workshop, he became more diverse in his techniques, trying sculpting, painting, ceramics, and drawing.

During the course of the 1940s, Fonseca traveled through Peru and Bolivia, studying art with other members of the Torres-Garcia workshop.

[1] Fonseca worked in excavations run by Flinders Petrie in Egypt, Sudan, Syria, and traveled through Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey, and Greece.

[1] He met and married Elizabeth Kaplan, from New York City, in the mid-1950s (and divorced two decades later) and moved to Manhattan in 1958 after being awarded a Simon Guggenheim Fellowship.

This exhibition contained mostly flat compositions, as was common with the works done by the Torres-Garcia workshop at that time.

Fonseca also created wooden reliefs for this exhibition, which laid a foundation for his three-dimensional art.

[1] He started working on large scale pieces mostly of marble, and recycled limestone from New York's demolished buildings.

He had few solo shows throughout his career, but several group exhibitions in which he became known for his stone sculptures of modern influenced architectural forms.

Fonseca's influence on his art derived from a fascination with history and cultures, and his early training as an architect helped him realize and formulate his sculptures.

This causes the viewer to recognize and identify parts of the sculpture, perhaps relating them to the characteristics of a building or home.

This work was part of horizontal, heavy slabs that were displayed as urban projects for participants to interact with.

The "Route of Friendship" contained nineteen concrete sculptures on the highway surrounding the capital.

This was a collaboration of architect Pedro Ramirez Vasquez and German sculptor Mathias Goeritz.

[6] This structure is not to be confused with La Torre de los Vientos, or The Tower of the Winds, which was built in 1974 as a tribute.