An important figure in the history of modernism of the Rio de la Plata region, Figari was also well known as a lawyer, public defender, art theoretician, and writer. Pedro Figari was born in Montevideo, Uruguay in 1861, and spent much of his childhood on a farm in what is now downtown Tres Cruces, facing a port of Montevideo Bay. In 1921 he decided to move to Buenos Aires to pursue his career as a painter. In 1925. he moved to Paris, where he continued painting until 1933. He decided to sail back to Montevideo, where he arrived in 1934. Pedro Figari died in Montevideo in 1938.. Figari painted primarily from memory, a technique that gives his work a far more personal feeling. With his unique style, which involved painting without the intention to create an illusion, he, along with other prominent Latin-American artists such as Diego Rivera and Tarsila do Amaral, sparked a revolution of identity in the art world of Latin America.
