José Belloni was born in Montevideo, in 1882; his father was Swiss from Ticino, and his mother Basque from Spain.

He took an early interest in sculpture, and was mentored by Luis Vasseli, earning a scholarship that briefly took him to Uruguay, in 1899.

[1] Returning to Uruguay, Belloni became an instructor in the Committee for the Encouragement of Fine Arts, and in 1914, he was picked to succeed painter Carlos María Herrera as director of the institution.

The first of these was Belloni's La carreta (The Carriage), an ode to the ox-cart drivers ubiquitous in the 19th century, cast in Florence, Italy by the Ferdinando Marinelli Artistic Foundry and unveiled in a city park (today José Batlle y Ordoñez Park), in 1919.

La música (1923) a monument to William Tell (1931) followed (also cast in Florence by Ferdinando Marinelli's foundry), and Belloni contributed numerous bronzes and bas-reliefs to the General Assembly of Uruguay, as well.