The article on sculpture at the 1910 Art Salon shows the existence of a group of Colombian sculptors as do few documents of the period. Most of these sculptors participated in the celebration of Colombia’s Centenary of Independence. Among the sculptors, only Juan José Rosas and Dionisio Cortés (1863?1934) received any commission from the government, and the commissions received were small. In this regard, it becomes evident that there was no well-known representative of Colombian sculpture at the time. That was why the commission for an equestrian statue of the Liberator, Simón Bolívar, the symbol of the exhibition, was given to a Parisian sculptor. The lack of any important figure in this field was one more strike against Bogotá’s School of Fine Arts, which was falling apart in the early twentieth century. Among other reasons, this was due to the lack of its own space, a lack of teachers in some basic fields and even a scarcity of materials for the classes.
The sculptures and busts made for the celebration of Colombia’s Centenary of Independence were the most common way of honoring the memory of national heroes. Of course, this led to more work for the artists, who were ultimately primarily responsible for creating representations of the public figures, events and places to be remembered and honored. Art spilled out into the city’s streets and parks. At each of the representative sites in the Colombian capital, there was a statue to remind people of some protagonist of the new history launched in 1810, the year when independence was heroically won [from Spain]. Inside the Salon, the work presented had its formal roots in Europe, although the themes remained Colombian. In each corner were a number of busts made with a whole range of methods and themes; some evoked the country’s political leaders, while others reflected the institutional power of both church and State. In this way, the art, and more specifically the sculpture, contributed to the re-creation, representation and strengthening of everything that characterized the new nation.