Timeline

Baltasar Lobo was born on February 22nd, 1910 in a small village of Zamora called Cerecinos de Campos. He entered Ramon Núñez's Art Workshop as an apprentice and, since 1923 he attended sculpture modelling courses at the Museum of Fine Arts of Valladolid. At the age of 17, he obtained a scholarship for the San Fernando Academy of Fine Arts in Madrid, but dropped out a few months later, although he continued to take night drawing lessons at the School of Arts and Crafts. At this time, he earned a living by sculpting gravestones.

During the Civil War, a bombing caused the death of his father, destroying Lobo's studio, who joined the republican side. In 1939, he fled to France together with his partner, Mercedes Guillen, with whom he settled down in Montparnasse. He then started a friendship with Picasso and Henri Laurens, who opened the doors of his workshop to him. At a collective exhibition at the Vendóme Gallery of Paris --and side by side with artists such as Matisse, Picasso and Leger--he gained interest from the public and the critics.

His first individual exhibition was opened at Stockholm's Blanche Gallery in 1951. Thanks to the ordering of the "Matemite" sculpture for the Central University of Venezuela in Caracas, he started a close relationship with this country that would last for his entire life.

Until his death in 1993, Lobo resided in Paris. His work travels around the world in numerous exhibitions. Villand Galanis in Paris, Nathan in Zürich, Nichido in Tokyo, Freites in Caracas and Daniel Malingue in Paris are some of the galleries currently exhibiting the artist's work. It was in 1984 that his works finally reached his home town, with his first exhibition in Zamora. The Baltasar Lobo de Zamora Museum was then created, housing an important collection of works donated by the artist and his successors. A travelling exhibition in 1992 with his sculptures and drawings reached Austria, Germany and Japan.

The prizes and awards granted to the artist include the André Susse Sculpting Award (1958), the Jacques Lenchener Award (1974), the Official Arts and Letters Award (France, 1981), the National Award for Plastic Arts (Spain, 1984), the Gold Medal Award Castilla y Leon (1986), the Andres Bello Award granted by the Government of Venezuela (1989) and the Gold Medal Susse Fréres Fondeul (1990).