Lily Garafulic

Lily Garafulic began attending the School of Fine Arts at the University of Chile in 1934, where she studied under the sculptor Lorenzo Domínguez. In 1944, she was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship to New York City, where she studied at the New School of Social Research (now called The New School) and worked with the engraver and printmaker Stanley William Hayter at Atelier 17. Garafulic was primarily a sculptor, working with marble, wood, bronze, and terra cotta. She also created many works on paper. Among Garafulic's most noted works are statues of sixteen prophets placed on the top of Lourdes Basilica in Santiago, Chile. She was a member of the Generation of 40 (Generación del 40) artists, which included other Chilean sculptors, including Marta Colvin. Garafulic became a professor of sculpture at the University of Chile in 1951. Her students included Sergio Badilla Castillo and Raúl Valdivieso. She became a professor emerita at the University of Chile in 1997. She also served as the director of the Chilean National Museum of Fine Arts from 1973 until 1977. She received the Premio Nacional de Artes Plásticas award in 1995. A centennial exhibit celebrating her work was displayed at the Chilean Embassy in Washington DC in 2014. A documentary titled "Lily Garafulic: In Her Words" was made about her life by her niece, Gloria Garafulich-Grabois. The documentary premiered in 2014.

Lily Garafulic was born in Antofagasta, Chile, on May 14, 1914. She is of Croatian descent. She died on March 15, 2012, at her home in the Parque Forestal section of Santiago, Chile, at the age of 97.