page_title: Edith Grøn
section_title: Career
hierarchical_section_title: Edith Grøn / Career
caption_attribution_description: Español: Busto de Rubén Darío tallado en mármol blanco de Guatemala.
context_page_description: Edith Grøn was a Danish-born Nicaraguan sculptor. She is considered to be the most significant 20th-century Nicaraguan sculptor. Her works are featured in public spaces throughout Nicaragua and abroad.
context_section_description: From 1940 to 1952, Grøn was in a relationship with Silvio Turcios, known as Bill. He was a boxer and fireman, and because of his physique, became her model for several sculptures, including the muscles for the athletes of El Relevo. According to her biographer, José Vivó, The Relay is known internationally as a symbol for the transfer of wisdom and knowledge. Grøn held her first solo exhibit at the National Palace of Culture in 1953, exhibiting large Costumbrismo sculptures of figures and several nudes. For the centennial celebration of the Battle of San Jacinto, she sculpted Andrés Castro Estrada, which was installed at the Hacienda San Jacinto in 1956. In 1958, she produced a sculpture of the head of journalist Gabry Rivas and that same year, she was decorated with the Order of Rubén Darío by the government of Nicaragua. The following year, she completed a monument dedicated to mothers, commissioned by historian Julián N. Guerrero. The statue, Monumento a la Madre was installed in Boaco. 
  Grøn sculpted in clay, stone and wood, and molded in concrete and various metals. Her initial works were realistic and she strove for perfection, but she was influenced by the Romanian modernist Constantin Brâncuși, which led her to shift to more stylized forms. In 1960, she completed a statue of General José Dolores Estrada for the Nicaraguan Association of Writers and Artists. She was known for her sculptures of Rubén Darío, and also depicted personalities such as Josefa Toledo de Aguerri, Pablo Antonio Cuadra, among others. A 1958 sculpture of Darío was installed in a Miami, Florida park in 1961. That same year, Grøn carved a stone head of Darío clothed in a Carthusian habit, titling it La Cartuja, in reference to the poet's 1913 work on the same theme. In 1962 to commemorate the 350th anniversary of the indigenous revolt against the Spanish conquistador Gil González Dávila, Grøn sculpted an image of Cacique Diriangén to depict his courage and resistance. In 1964, she sculpted a bust of Darío from white Guatemalan marble, which has become an iconic image of the poet. In the 1970s, Grøn developed mouth cancer and went to the MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston for chemotherapy. She began losing her sight in 1981 and was forced to change to painting and inlay works with wood. Some of her most known paintings include: Muchacha en la hamaca (Girl in a hammock), Cándida, Desnudo (The nude), and Llanto después del desastre (Tears after the disaster), which was a reference to the 1972 Nicaraguan earthquake.
  Numerous sculptures by Grøn adorn public places in Nicaragua, such as El Relevo, (The Relay) which is in front of the post office of Managua; a monument to Andrés Castro Estrada, which was commissioned in 1956 by students and teachers, who had trained with the educator Miguel Ramírez Goyena; a work on José Dolores Estrada which stands at the Masaya entrance to the Tiscapa Lagoon Natural Reserve; a statue of Cacique Diriangén which adorns the park Las Piedrecitas in Managua; a sculpture of Rubén Darío, located at the Central Bank of Nicaragua, which is the most reproduced depiction of the author in the country; and a bust of Darío completed in 1964, which adorns the National Theater bearing his name. Between 1959 and 1980, Grøn sculpted more than 300 works. They are held not only in Nicaragua, but in Belgium, Colombia, Costa Rica, Denmark, France, Germany, Mexico, Peru, and Spain, among other countries. She was honored with the Rubén Darío Order of Cultural Independence in 1989.
caption: The bust of Darío which adorns the Rubén Darío National Theatre
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