Hector Sgarbi. Uruguay. Composition With A Red Circle And Bleue Square, 1956.

Painter and sculptor born in Montevideo, Uruguay, he studied at the Círculo de Bellas Artes in Montevideo. Benefiting from a scholarship granted by the Ministry of Public Education, he visited European art centers and settled in Paris in 1937. He studied at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris and at André Lhote's academy, La Grande Chaumière. He remained there until 1946. He became familiar with the artistic avant-garde, withstood the hardships of the Nazi occupation, and worked extensively in black and white. In 1946, he returned to Uruguay and, under the auspices of the National Commission of Fine Arts, organized an exhibition of 200 works (paintings and drawings), which he later transferred to Buenos Aires. In the 1950s, he devoted himself to theater design. That same year, he moved to Belgium as secretary at the Uruguayan embassy, where he devoted himself to culture. From 1960, he devoted himself to sculpture. He exhibited at the Salon d'Automne in Paris from 1940 to 1953, at the Salon des Indépendants from 1938 to 1950, and at the International Sculpture Biennale in Carrara, Italy, in 1962. He returned permanently to Uruguay in 1974. He taught drawing and painting at the Círculo de Bellas Artes.