Marina Núñez del Prado

Marina Núñez del Prado
Born	17 October 1910 La Paz, Bolivia
Died	9 September 1995 Lima, Peru
Nationality	Bolivian
Occupation	sculptors

Marina Núñez del Prado (ca. 1910–1995) was a celebrated Bolivian sculptor.

Marina Núñez del Prado was one of the most respected sculptors from Latin America. Her work is highly sensuous, with rolling curves. She carved from native Bolivian woods, as well as black granite, alabaster, basalt and white onyx. Perhaps one of her most famous works is "White Venus" (1960), a stylized female body in white onyx. Another celebrated work is "Mother and Child," sculpted in white onyx. Indigenous Bolivian cultures inspired much of her work.

Marina Núñez Del Prado was born in La Paz, Bolivia on October 17th, 1910. Del Prado first discovered her love of art in her youth while studying sculptural modeling techniques in La Paz. Her passion for sculpture was inspired by the work of Michelangelo, and she went on to study fine art at the Academy of Fine Arts in La Paz, graduating in 1930. She continued on at her alma mater as an instructor of artistic anatomy and sculpture. She became the first woman to achieve a position as the chair of the Academy.

While she was working at the Academy of Fine Arts, La Paz, Del Prado began exhibiting locally. She was very artistically active, and collaborated with various artists, such as Cecilio Guzmán de Rojas, a Bolivian painter who led the indigenous art movement at that time. Similarly Del Prado primarily focused her work on the rights of indigenous peoples and indigenismo, a political ideology centering the relationship of the indigenous population with the government.

Del Prado left her job at the university and her home city of La Paz to travel in 1938. She spent the next several years traveling through Peru, Uruguay, and Argentina. She then traveled to other countries outside of South America, including Egypt, parts of Europe, and the United States, where she studied for 8 years in New York on a fellowship awarded by the America Association of University Women.

While in New York, Del Prado won a Gold Medal for her exhibition “Miners in Rebellion.” This work was centered around the workers of the Bolivian region of Potosi. Shortly after this, in 1948, Del Prado moved back to La Paz, where she continued to make work inspired by the indigenous peoples of South America, as well as the landscape and culture of her homeland. She later moved to Peru in 1972, where she lived with her husband, Jorge Falcón, a writer native to Peru. With her four siblings, Del Prado donated the Casa Museo Marina Nuñez del Prado to the people of Bolivia in memory of her parents. The museum houses over a thousand works of art, mostly done by Del Prado and some by her sister, Nilda. Del Prado passed away in Lima, Peru in 1995.

In 1938 she left her post and traveled through Bolivia, Peru, Argentina, Uruguay, the United States, Europe, and Egypt. From 1940 to 1948, she worked and organized exhibitions of her work in the United States while on a scholarship. In 1946 "Miners in Revolt," inspired by the miners in Bolivia's Potosí Department, won a gold medal in a New York exhibition. In 1948 she returned to Bolivia, finally settling down in La Paz in 1958. By 1972 she moved to Peru where she lived with her husband, a Peruvian writer.

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