Juan Luis Vassallo Parodi

Training under Aniceto Marinas and Josep Capuz is recorded. The recorded working language is Spanish. The field of work recorded is art of sculpture and imagery. Work by Juan Luis Vassallo Parodi is recorded in the collections of Museo del Prado.

He was the son of the Chiclana painter Eduardo Vassallo Dorronzoro and Dolores Parodi Rosas, Cadiz families of Italian origin. He began his studies in Cordoba, where his father was stationed, and continued them in Baeza, where he met the sculptor Mateo Inurria. At the age of 19 he left to study in Madrid, having won a scholarship to attend life drawing classes at the Círculo de Bellas Artes. He also attended the School of Arts and Crafts. His teachers were Aniceto Marinas and José Capuz. In 1927 he won the first prize for sculpture at the Casino's annual exhibition with his portrait of La Jeroma. The sculptor Mariano Benlliure, a member of the jury, paid for the bronze reproduction. He studied at the San Fernando School of Fine Arts between 1931 and 1934. After that he moved to Ávila, where he became a teacher at the School of Arts and Crafts. His two years in Ávila introduced him to Castilian realist sculpture and stonework, as can be seen in his Mujer abulense and Añoranza, for which he won the third medal at the 1934 National Fine Arts Exhibition. From 1936 he began his Andalusian period at the School of Arts and Crafts in Jerez de la Frontera (1936-1941) and at the School of Fine Arts in Seville from 1943; he directed the latter centre from 1952 to 1958. In 1943 he created the sculpture of Jesus praying in the Garden for the brotherhood of the same name in Jerez. In 1958 he obtained the chair of Modelling at the San Fernando School of Fine Arts in Madrid, where he moved and where he continued to teach until his retirement in 1978. In 1967, he was appointed a full member of the San Fernando Fine Arts Academy. In 1972 he was awarded first prize in the competition for the design of a monument to Saint Teresa in Ávila, a monument that was built on the occasion of Pope John Paul II's visit in 1982. His grandson, Francisco Javier Latasa, used part of the sculptor's name and the spelling of his signature in the creation and naming of the company VASS.