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The start of Jorge Oteiza's artistic career in the early 1930s quickly earned the endorsement of the art and academic scene. In both 1931 and 1933, the young artist won first prize in the sculpture category in the new artist competitions of Guipúzcoa, and his presence as an artist was an early reference in the cultural scene of the era.

During this period, Oteiza was an active member of an innovative milieu along with other young Basque artists such as Nicolás de Lekuona, Narkis Balenciaga and José Sarriegui. Together they addressed the need to bring Basque art up to date along with its necessary connection with the avant-garde movements which were updating the painting and sculpture practices internationally in the first few decades of the century. One year after the celebrated exhibition which Oteiza held with Lekuona and Balenciaga in the Kursaal in San Sebastián, he embarked on a journey through Latin America with Balenciaga which for Oteiza lasted until 1948. This context serves as the backdrop of his 1947 work Portrait of My Wife, which dovetailed with the last few years of his stay in Latin America, in which he travelled between Colombia, Ecuador and Peru before returning to Buenos Aires, from which he went back to Bilbao. During this period, Oteiza combined his teaching with his artistic practice and essay-writing, and he published texts that are crucial in understanding the content of his aesthetic universe, such as Carta a los artistas de América. Sobre el arte nuevo de postguerra (Letter to the Artists of America on the New Postwar Art) and Interpretación estética de la estatuaria megalítica americana (Aesthetic Interpretation of American Megalithic Statuary), which he published years later.

The reference to the new organicist spatiality that Henry Moore proposed in the 1940s is a fundamental reference in his works from this period, a time when Oteiza began to seek to expand the spatial condition of sculpture, which was still associated with the idea of the body or figure, but with a clear aim of overcoming the limitations of figurative language in order to explore a more structural, synthetic constructive language. In contrast to the increasing dynamism of his works from this period, with this portrait of his wife, Itziar Carreño, Oteiza returned to a more silent, archaic register common to essentialist sculpture, which was endowed with a certain timeless staticity. The artist resolved the facial features with lines and geometric shapes that contrast with the fluidity of the round shape of the sculptural body. Years later, Oteiza made another Portrait of Itziar (1953), this one a relief marked by an expressive gesturality and pronounced, contrasting shapes delimiting the face.

The theme of the portrait was a constant feature of Oteiza's oeuvre, not only the pieces from his figurative period but also during his more experimental, abstract period. This issue of the theme associated with sculptural representation is essential in his understanding of the referential
capacity of a work of art. (Juan Pablo Huércanos)

Selected bibliography

• Oteiza : propòsit experimental = an experimental proposition [Cat. exp.]. Barcelona, Fundació Caixa de Pensions, 1988. p. 76.
• Oteiza : creador integral [Cat. exp.]. Pamplona, Universidad Pública de Navarra ; Museo Oteiza, 1999. p. 176. (con el título Retrato de Itziar)
• Subastas Bilbao XXI. Bilbao, Subastas Bilbao XXI, 2011. pp. 80-81
• Badiola, Txomin. Oteiza : catálogo razonado de escultura. Alzuza, Navarra ; San Sebastián, Fundación Museo Jorge Oteiza Fundazio Museoa ; Nerea, 2015. 2 v. pp. 97, 404, n° cat. CRIO 1.6.02.000. (con el título Retrato de mi mujer)
• Badiola, Txomin. Oteiza : eskultura katalogo arrazoitua. Alzuza, Navarra ; San Sebastián, Fundación Museo Jorge Oteiza Fundazio Museoa ; Nerea, 2015. 2 v. pp. 97, 404, n° cat. CRIO 1.6.02.000.
• Badiola, Txomin. Oteiza : catalogue raisonné of sculpture. Alzuza, Navarra ; San Sebastián, Fundación Museo Jorge Oteiza Fundazio Museoa ; Nerea, 2015. 2 v. pp. 97, 404, n° cat. CRIO 1.6.02.000.
• Viar, Javier. Historia del arte vasco : de la Guerra Civil a nuestros días, 1936-2016. Bilbao, Bilboko Arte Ederren Museoa-Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao, 2017. pp. 63-64, 66, il.
• 110 Años 110 Obras [Cat. exp.]. Bilbao, Bilboko Arte Ederren Museoa-Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao, 2018. pp. 264-265, sin n° cat.
• 110 Ans 110 Oeuvres [Cat. exp.]. Bilbao, Bilboko Arte Ederren Museoa-Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao, 2018. pp. 264-265, sin n° cat.
• 110 Years 110 Works [Cat. exp.]. Bilbao, Bilboko Arte Ederren Museoa-Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao, 2018. pp. 264-265, sin n° cat.
• 110 Urte 110 Artelan [Cat. exp.]. Bilbao, Bilboko Arte Ederren Museoa-Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao, 2018. pp. 264-265, sin n° cat.
• Bilboko Museoaren alfabetoa = El alfabeto del Museo de Bilbao = The alphabet of the Bilbao Museum = L'alphabet du Musée de Bilbao [Cat. exp.]. Bilbao, Bilboko Arte Ederren Museoa-Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao, 2018. pp. 90, 95, 97, 100-101, n° cat. 48.