Lola Mora

Dolores was the daughter of Romualdo Alejandro Mora, a prosperous landowner of Tucumán Province of Spanish origin and Regina Vega. She was the third born of seven children, three boys and four girls. Her parents (unusual behavior for the time) decided that the girls will have too, the best education possible. In 1870 when Lola was 4 years old her parents decided to move the family to San Miguel del Tucumán At seven years of age, circa 1874, she was a boarding school pupil at Colegio Sarmiento de Tucumán Province. In 1885, within two days both her parents died. Her older sister Paula Mora Vega married the engineer Guillermo Rucker, and together took care of the orphans.

Mora working at her studio in 1903

At 20 years of age she began painting portraits, but soon turned to sculpting marble and granite. She studied art in her home province and then, with a scholarship, in Rome, Italy, studying under Costantino Barbella and Giulio Monteverde.In 1900 she returned to Argentina and, with government connections, was commissioned to create two bas-reliefs for the Historical House of Tucumán.

As her career developed, her sensual style and her status as a female artist made her controversial. In 1903 her Nereids Fountain, created for the city of Buenos Aires, met bureaucratic problems at the city's Deliberative Council, which had the sculpture moved from place to place.

Near the end of her life, she did some extravagant business (such as financing petroleum surveys in Salta), and then retired with only a pension to support herself. After her death in Buenos Aires, in poverty and obscurity, friends of hers burned her letters, mementos and personal diaries.

Mora obtained various patents. One included a system to project films without a screen (using a column of vapor), as well as systems for mining.

Mora was the subject of the 1996 film "Lola Mora", directed by Argentinian director Javier Torre.

Mora's works include (in Buenos Aires unless otherwise noted):

• two bas-reliefs at the House of Tucumán, with the themes of the May Revolution's First National Government and the Declaration of Independence, 1900
• the Nereids Fountain, now located at Puerto Madero, 1903
• two major sculptural groups flanking the entrance, and other interior and exterior work, Palace of the Argentine National Congress, inaugurated 1906 (four allegorical sculptures of Peace, Justice, Liberty and Progress were removed to the grounds of the Government House of San Salvador de Jujuy)
• several sculpture groups placed along the "Oath Passage" in the historic center of Rosario, leading to the National Flag Memorial
• female figure for the crypt of Ramon Lopez Lecube, La Recoleta Cemetery, circa 1912
• Avellaneda Memorial, Plaza Alsina, Avellaneda, 1913
• Liberty, Independence Square, San Miguel de Tucumán
• Monument to Francisco Narciso de Laprida, San José de Jáchal

• 

  Monument to Liberty along the Monument to the Flag in Rosario

• 

  The Nereids Fountain, Buenos Aires

• 

  Progress

• 

  Grave in La Recoleta Cemetery

• 

  Statues in the National Congress

• 

  Grenadier (Argentine Army)

• 

  Lady Justice