1901-1920:
Lorenzo Domínguez was born in Santiago, Chile, on May 15th, 1901.
His parents, Sebastián Domínguez Aguilar and Ana Villar Urbano, came from Spain, from the villages of Colmenar and Casa Bermeja in the Province of Málaga.
Lorenzo Domínguez completed elementary school in Spain, and high school in Chile.
1920-1925:
In 1920 Lorenzo Domínguez travelled once more to Spain.
In Madrid he studied medicine for five years.
He became acquainted with personalities from the sciences, the humanities and the arts: Santiago Ramón y Cajal, García del Real, Letamendi, Negrín, Marañón, Pío del Río Hortega, Ramón del Valle Inclán, Enrique Diez Canedo, Novais Teixeira, Gómez de la Serna, Gutiérrez Solana, Almada Negreiros, Juan de Echeverría, Ricardo Baroja, Juan de la Encina, Jorge de Oteiza, Victorio Macho, Manuel Martínez Hugué o "Manolo".
1926-1931:
Still in Madrid, he realized that he wanted to become a sculptor.
He travelled through Spain, visiting museums and churches brimful with the creations of the "imagineros".
He worked at Juan Cristóbal's and Emiliano Barral's workshops.
With Barral he discovered the fascination of stone and learned the art of carving it.
His sculptures from this period are in marble, stone and bronze. Among them we should mention: two marble heads, "Cajal" and "Julia"; a stone head, the portrait of Martín Luis Guzmán, the Mexican writer; the monument dedicated to Cajal, also in stone; and a bronze head called "Young Woman with Short Hair". There is photographic documentation of two plasters of this period: Novais Teixeira's bust and Miguel Servet's head.
1931-1938:
In 1931, he returned to Chile to teach sculpture at the Escuela de Bellas Artes de Santiago.
He participated in cultural circles, particularly those at the "Posada del Corregidor".
He befriended other plastic artists like Camilo Mori, Totila Albert, Laura Rodig, Samuel Román, Hernán Gazmuri, Pablo Burchard, Augusto Eguiluz, Inés Puyó, Anita Cortés, María Tupper; poets and writers like Pablo Neruda, Vicente Huidobro, Marta Brunet, Nicanor Parra, Augusto D'Halmar, Manuel Rojas, Mariano Latorre; musicians like Claudio Arrau, Acario Cotapos, Víctor Tevah, Rosita Renard; scientists like professor Alejandro Lipschutz; and interesting personalities like Ismael Valdés, Abelardo Pachín Bustamante, the architect Juan Martínez, Nieves Yankovic, Elisa Bindhoff, who would later become André Breton's wife.
Among his disciples we should mention Lily Garafulic, Marta Colvin, María Bellet, María Fuentealba.
During this period Lorenzo Domínguez sculpted works of classical and expressionist orientation, like the monuments to Jaime Pinto Riesco, to Johann Sebastian Bach and to Dr. Germán Valenzuela Basterrica; the Saint Olalla bust in Carrara marble; Augusto D'Halmar's stone portrait; several bronzes like "Eliana", "Elisa Bindhoff", "Professor Lipschutz", and the portraits of the painters Pablo Burchard and Hernán Gazmuri. "Lilión", a female head in green marble from Florence, excels among his works of this period.
1938-1939:
In 1938 he returned to Spain.
He lived in Barcelona for three months. There, he collaborated with Republican groups in the saving of artistic masterpieces endangered by the civil war.
He travelled to France. In Paris he frequented the workshops of Brancusi, Bourdelle, Zadkine, Maillol.
1939-1941:
He returned to Santiago de Chile to teach at the Escuela de Bellas Artes.
Among other works, he completed the remarkable monument to Dr. Luis Calvo Mackenna and "Portrait of the Moon", both in basalt; the magnificent marble portrait of the engraver Víctor Delhez; and a stone portrait of the painter Augusto Eguiluz.
1941-1949:
He travelled to Argentina, having signed a contract as professor of sculpture at the Universidad Nacional de Cuyo.
He took up residence in Mendoza.
In 1942 he married Clara Digiovanni. In Mendoza, his children -Federica, Lorenzo and Fernán- would be born.
At the time, the Universidad de Cuyo was a center of fine arts, hosting artists like the engravers Víctor Delhez and Sergio Hocevar -or "Sergio Sergi"-; and painters like Francisco Bernareggi and Ramón Gómez Cornet. The group of personalities with whom Lorenzo Domínguez interacted during his two periods in Mendoza included the painters Roberto Azzoni, Rosalía Flichman, Roberto Cascarini, Fidel de Lucia; the poets Reinaldo Bianchini, Alberto Cirigliano, Alberto Daneo, Daniel Devoto, Jorge Enrique Ramponi, Guillermo Kaúl, Américo Calí; the writers Ricardo Tudela, Antonio Di Benedetto, Julio Cortázar, Abelardo Vázquez, Juan Villaverde, Iverna Codina, Angélica Mendoza; the historian Claudio Sánchez Albornoz; the writer and philosophy professor Diego Pró; the philosophy professor Felipe García de Onrubia; Juan and Ernesto Corominas, who were respectively philologist and mathematician; Edmundo Correas, first rector of Cuyo University; Enrique Zuleta Álvarez, professor of political sciences and director of the university library; the professors of literature Adolfo Ruiz Díaz, Alfredo Roggiano Emilia Puceiro, Delia Villalobos; the art history professor Carlos Massini Correas; other professors like Matilde Zuloaga, Lorenzo Mascialino, Manlio Lugaresi; the mathematician Manuel Balanzat; the medical doctors Fernando Mas Robles, Francisco Correas, Francisco Amengual, Mario Burgos and Rodolfo Muratorio Posse; several musicians like the pianist Antonio De Raco, the composer Isidro Maiztegui, the composer and singer of folk songs Jaime Dávalos, the organist and composer Julio Perceval, Salomone, Amicarelli, Julio Malaval, the singer Mary Lan, the pianist Estela López Lubary; the actress and theater director Galina Tolmacheva, the actress Niní Gambier; the folklorist and narrator Juan Draghi Lucero; the journalist Miguel Gómez Echea; the editor Gildo D'Accurzio; the photographer Antonio D'Elia; the lawyer Juan Carlos Silva; the architects Daniel Ramos Correas, Samuel Sánchez de Bustamente, and Arturo and Manolo Civit.
In Lorenzo Domínguez's workshop one could model, carve, draw, or talk.
A group of young people approached the sculptor: poets and writers like Fernando Lorenzo, Víctor Hugo Cúneo, Armando Tejada Gómez, Rodolfo Braceli, Hugo Acevedo; the singer Mercedes Sosa; the painters José Manuel Gil, Enrique Sobisch, Rosa Arturo; Joaquín Lavado -or "Quino", humorist and creator of comic scripts-; the draughtsmen Fivaller Subirats and Mario Marziali; the engraver Heriberto Hualpa.
Among his disciples, four young persons would work with him for a particularly long period: Beatriz Capra, Mariano Pagés, José Carrieri and Carlos de la Motta. Even today, already sculptors in their own right, all four of them continue to consider Domínguez as their teacher.
Other disciples, although not all of them would choose to become sculptors, were: Luis Quesada, Carlos Alonso, Marcelo Santángelo, Irene Pepa, Elio Mirrado, Alberto Moscatelli, Orlando Pardo, Leonor Rigau, Miguel Ángel Sugo, Enrique Miret, José Bermúdez, the Santiesteban brothers, Blanca and Araceli Romera.
A permanent presence at his workshop was his lifetime helper, Mansueto Paratore.
Don Cayetano Mauro was a habitual companion in Domínguez's trips to the mountains in search of stones adequate for carving.
Periodically, Lorenzo Domínguez travelled to Buenos Aires. Here, the group of friends was formed by painters like Emilio Pettoruti, Héctor Basaldúa, Benito Quinquela Martín, Lucio Fontana -who was also a sculptor-, Raquel Forner, Luis Seoane, Alfredo Guido, Ernesto Farina, Mariette Lydis; sculptors like Líbero Badii, Antonio Sibellino, Alfredo Bigatti, José Fioravanti, Horacio Juárez, Noemí Gerstein, Lea Lublin; ceramists like Fernando Arranz and Tove Johansen; art critics like Jorge Romero Brest, Córdova Iturburu, Julio Payró, Roger Plá, José Luis Pagano, Lorenzo Varela, Miguel de los Santos, Romualdo Brughetti; photographers like Horacio Cóppola, Grete Stern, Anatole Saderman; poets and writers like Rafael Alberti, María Teresa León, Miguel Ángel Asturias, Oliverio Girondo, Manuel Mujica Láinez, Eduardo González Lanuza, Mario Binetti, Victoria Ocampo, actors and theater people like Margarita Xirgu, Delia Garcés, Pedro López Lagar, the scenographer Gori Muñoz; the editor Gonzalo Losada; and art collectors like Víctor Bossart and Federico Vogelius.
During this period, Lorenzo Domínguez completed some of his main works: two stone portraits of his wife -"Clara" and "Clara Federica"-; a portrait in red stone of the painter Francisco Bernareggi; some direct carvings about the planetary theme, particularly "The Planet Venus" and "The Morning Star"; Beatriz Capra's first stone head; two monuments dedicated to Pasteur; the stone heads of Paco Correas, Jorge Enrique Ramponi, Hipólito Digiovanni, Zezette Daneo, Ramón Gómez Cornet, Francisco and Dorita Amengual; a marble girl head, called "Cuyanita"; the bust of his mother Ana Villar de Domínguez; the extraordinary head of Sergio Sergi, in black granite from Córdoba; "Llaima-Llaima", a female bust in stone; the monumental "Christ of Resurrection", in plaster, which later would be cast in bronze to be placed at the campus of the Universidad de Cuyo; two monuments to Leandro N. Alem; and a monument to San Martín and O'Higgins.
The sculptor went on drawing systematically: a portrait of his wife, religious themes like "The Prophet Jonas", some drawings on American subjects.
1949-1956:
He moved to Tucumán to work as professor of sculpture at the Universidad Nacional de Tucumán.
Tucumán was a relevant artistic center, hosting painters like Lino Spilimbergo and Ramón Gómez Cornet, engravers like Pompeyo Audivert, draughtsmen like Lajos Szálay, and a group of metal workers headed by Pedro Zurro de la Fuente. Horacio Descole was the rector of the University, and Guido Parpagnoli was the dean of the Instituto Superior de Artes.
The circle of colleagues and friends included, besides the ones already mentioned, the biology and medicine researchers Cecilio Romagna, Giuseppe Cei, Juan Carlos Fasciolo; the psychiatrist Juan Dalma; the priest Petit de Murat; the literary critic and writer Enrique Anderson Imbert, the writer Pablo Rojas Paz; the orchestra director Félix Cilario; the architects Eduardo Sacriste, Hilario Zalba, Vivanco, Caminos, Traine, Lerena, Enrico Tedeschi; the engraver Víctor Rebuffo, the draughtsmen and graphic designer Eugenio Hirsch, the painter Luis Lobo de la Vega; and other plastic artists like Nieto Palacios, Timoteo Navarro, Francisco Ramoneda, Medardo Pantoja.
Occasionally, Domínguez travelled to Resistencia, Chaco, where he met Aldo and Efraín Boglietti and Hilda Torres Varela, who among other intellectuals, had organized a cultural center and a residence for artists, the "Fogón de los Arrieros".
Among his disciples at the Tucumán workshop, we should mention Juan Carlos and Juana Briones, Frías, Dato, Fernández Larrinaga, Ana Matilde Aybar, María Eugenia Soria, Brígida Belcuore.
In Tucumán, Domínguez completed some important sculptures: two portraits of the painter Lino Spilimbergo; two heads in granite and blue stone, "Leonor", portrait of Leonor Rigau, and "Black Boxer", the plasters of which had already been done in Mendoza in 1948; a relief in red stone, "Time Hieroglyph"; a direct carving, "Guido Parpagnoli", also in red stone; a celebration of the unknown political prisoner, represented by a stone skull that covers his eye holes with both hands; "Death", in black basalt; professor Schreiter's head; a third portrait of his wife, in marble; and especially two female figures almost three meters high, "Flora" and "Fauna", that are part of the monument to the naturalist Miguel Lillo.
During this period, Lorenzo Domínguez developed and mastered the technique of embossing large iron or copper plates: "The Prophet Jonas", "Fight between Pachamama and War", "Our Lord Don Quixote", "Adam and Eve", "Judith and Holofernes", "Portrait of the Sun", several plates on the subject of Don Quixote.
The artist produced around one hundred drawings. He continued with the religious themes and the portraits; he began the four series of nudes and another series on Chilean themes; he completed the extraordinary series he called "Via Crucis of Don Quixote", and a very brief series on the maternity theme.
His art, of monumental quality, searched for American elements.
1956-1959:
He returned to Mendoza, to the Escuela Superior de Artes Plásticas of the Universidad Nacional de Cuyo.
Some of his old disciples went back to his workshop. New ones arrived: Carmen Gracia, Mónica Wasmuth, Claudia Zanettini, Chipo Céspedes, Juan Antonio García, Teresa Larrañaga Domínguez, Matías Vial, Eliana Molinelli.
Great sculptures of this period are the monument to Plato, and a torso in black granite.
He completed several embossed metal plates: "Saint Barbara", "The Mountains", "The Pregnant Woman", "The Visit".
The artist worked still more intensely at his drawings. He continued with the series of nudes and the religious themes, he completed the series on Chile, he produced new portraits, he performed a series on subjects that in a certain way anticipated his future contact with Easter Island and another that he called "Stones", a succession of monumental figures that seem to have spurt from the rock. Among the thirty or so drawings of the series that we have called "Assorted Themes", there are some interesting subseries such as drawings on the bombing of Barcelona, on the childbirth theme, or on "The Death of the Rabbit".
1960:
In January, thanks to a grant from Fondo Nacional de las Artes, Domínguez fulfilled a lifetime dream: to travel to Easter Island.
He lived there for thirteen months, surrounded by the Island's aesthetic atmosphere. He wrote a long personal and artistic journal in the form of letters to his wife.
He completed around one hundred and thirty drawings inspired by the sculptures and petroglyphs of the Island.
1961-1963:
In January of 1961 he left Easter Island and returned to Argentina, to his workshop in Mendoza.
He sculpted a symbolic work, a direct carving in red stone called "Peace", representing an angel breaking a sword. Besides, he completed two wood heads, both of Easter Island inspiration: "Young Girl from Easter Island", and a portrait of Father Sebastian Englert.
He completed numerous embossed iron and copper plates on Easter Island subjects: "Ship Chased by an Aku-Aku", "Hieroglyph from Hanga-Papara", "Komaris", "Make-Make of the Storm", the marvellous "Flying Bird", "The Birds, or The Kiss", "The Shipwrecked", and "Easter Island Torso". The copper plate "Breakfast is ready" belongs to this period as well.
He drew some nudes and portraits, several works of religious themes, a subseries in which Don Quixote is identified with Christ, and another one about the shipwreck theme. A curious drawing of this period is "The Madly in Love Melon Vendor", a true love message addressed to his wife Clara.
1963:
He died in Mendoza on March 21st.