The Círculo de Bellas Artes, founded in Montevideo in 1905, became a major promoter of Uruguayan artists and their art. It also established and maintained contact with foreign artists, and founded the first school of modernist art which was directed by the Uruguayan painter Carlos María Herrera up to the time of his death (1875–1914).
The institution’s first international exhibition was the IV Exposición del Círculo F. de Bellas Artes in January-February 1910. The V Exposición, held in 1912, included artists from Uruguay, Argentina, and Brazil; there were far more Brazilian artists on this occasion than there had been at the previous exhibition. One of them was Rodolfo Amoedo (1857–1941), an artist from Bahia who studied in Paris (1879–87) and was later a teacher at the Academia Imperial de Rio de Janeiro. Many of the Brazilian painters at this event had, in fact, been Amoedo’s students at one time or another. Roberto Rowley Mendes (1867–1942) was another one: an acclaimed landscape painter who had studied under Victor Meirelles at the Círculo de Bellas Artes.
Argentina, on the other hand, sent fewer artists than it had to the 1910 exhibition. The Nexus group was not there on this occasion, after having infused Argentinean painting with a very distinct sense of renewal at the earlier event. Two Argentineans who did stand out, however, were to have an impact on Uruguayan art in the early part of the twentieth century. Francisco Bauzer (1887–1945) was born in Argentina but trained in Uruguay under the Italian maestro Godofredo Sommavilla (1850–1944). He later went on to enroll in the Sociedad Estímulo de Bellas Artes de Buenos Aires. His paintings were displayed in the two capital cities of the Río de la Plata region over the course of more two decades. The other Argentinean in this category was the sculptor Luis Falcini (1889–1973), who lived in Montevideo from 1919 to 1929 where he had a very distinguished teaching career at the Círculo de Bellas Artes and at the Escuela Industrial de Montevideo. Falcini stayed in touch with the Círculo de Bellas Artes when he was appointed Director of the Museo Municipal de Bellas Artes de Buenos Aires.
In the Uruguayan contingent (all born between 1882 and 1890), attention centered on the young artists who exhibited at the event—in most cases for the first time—and went on to have professional and teaching careers beginning in 1920. This group included Humberto Causa (1890–1925) who, together with José Cúneo (1887–1977) founded the so-called Montevideo planista school; Alberto Dura (1888–1971), a landscape painter who won the top prizes at the earliest Salones Nacionales from 1937 to 1939; Andrés Etchebarne Bidart (1889–1931); Guillermo Laborde (1886–1940), the main painting instructor at the Círculo de Bellas Artes from 1922 to 1940; and Melchor Méndez Magariños (1885–1945) and Manuel Rosé (1882–1961). The latter was a noted colorist who influenced some of his young students (at his studio in Las Piedras) in the 1930s.