Around 1920, the grant the Argentine government had given Curatella Manes was reaching its ending. It was his third trip to Europe, and he settled in Paris, where he found the support and friendship of his conspicuous teacher Bourdelle. He also enjoyed the friendship of Juan Gris, Leger, André Lhote, Laurence, Reverdy, Brancusi and Le Corbusier among others.

His meeting with Juan Gris was decisive for Curatella Manes. The figurines Juan Gris made of folded and articulated cardboard for Sergio Diaghilew's Russian ballets, encouraged Curatella Manes to freely express his sculptor's vision. That is how El Guitarrista came to life; it was his first work, a proclamation of the fertility of that period. He distances himself from cubism and the baroque in it, since his interest was, above everything else, in the simplification of the shapes, based on a geometrizing intent.

Resorting to a new compression of planes and light, and the same elegance portrayed in El Guitarrista, he creates El Acordeonista , El Hombre del Contrabajo (The man of the double bass) and some female nudes such as Mulata (Mulatta) and Ninfa Acostada (Lying nymph). Shortly after, Los Acrobatas, (The acrobats) inspired in a circus show, opens up new horizons, and the possibility to lighten the matter, air the volumes and preserve only the outline, thus insinuating movement.

These are Curatella Manes' statements of the time and they reflect his ongoing quest. His modeling acquires a new lyric impulse of fleshless planes, independent of volume, that induce movement and reinforce the triumph of light. He makes a number of open sculptures, structures of thick, intertwined filaments, aerial shapes in spite of the coarse material used for their creation, in which he finds balance of the masses, correspondence between volumes, huge rhythms and the distribution of light to accomplish his ideal. From that time remain Icaró, Rugby, La Danza y La Santa.

In August 1926 he starts to work for the Argentine embassy in Paris as foreign affairs official. Adjustment is rather difficult at the beginning and he does not work in his studio for over two years. After resuming his work, he carves Las Tres Gracias. This work was a test after a long period away from work, and is therefore unrelated to his previous work. He revisits a heavy volume, blurring the shapes and barely suggesting a rhythm. His intention is to illustrate rhythm through volumes. His figures take on relaxed postures and despite the absence of faces they project naiveté.

Although he devotes little time to his art, only weekends and holidays, this period is fruitful. Some of the works are: Idilio Criollo, Maternidad, El Gaucho y su Caballo, Cabeza del Profeta, Dan, Los Amantes and a series of Los Torsos. The expressiveness achieved in the period is perfected in two great reliefs ordered for the 1937 Paris Exhibition: Los Dos Hemisferios y La Tierra Argentina.

During World War II, suffering the shortcomings of the time, without a studio, or supplies, he devoted to drawing, and to clay, metal and cardboard maquettes. Such a substantial yet precarious use of the shapes led him to what he called La Estructura Madre (The Mother Structure). He immediately attaches great relevance to it, considering it the summary of the imperatives imposed on a sculpture. It becomes the archetype on which he will create seven sculptures. He uses for each a material that reflects what he wishes to express.

El Pájaro with full planes is cast in bronze.In Falena he highlights the transparencies of the planes using acrylic.In Tango both planes overlap one another. Proyección 7 highlights the contour of the structure merging the two planes and the golden bronze livens the piece. Proyeccion 8 is also the expression of the contour but with volume over the planes.In Construcción Espacial the metal plate allows for very accentuated movements over the shape of the structure. Dos Formas en Una provides a freer interpretation, both planes merge and connect through a metal plate.