Julio Gonzalez

JULIO GONZÁLEZ PELLICER (Barcelona, 1876 - Arcueil, France, 1942).
"Paysanne au panier et a la gerbe", 1935-36.
Gouache and pen on paper.
Provenance: Elvira Gonzalez Gallery, Madrid.
Work published in the catalog raisonné of drawings, Vol.II. Paris, 1975, pg.206.
Measurements: 28,5 x 19 cm; 47 x 39,5 cm (frame).

In this drawing of a peasant woman with basket and sheaf, Julio Gonzalez extracts from the figure an essential humanity. While elements such as the corn and the handkerchief reinforce the connection with the social and the land, the way of resolving the features, which seem to be carved with a gouge, transmits a strength that transcends the traditional representation.

Julio González was born into a family of goldsmiths, learning the trade as a child. Later he studied Fine Arts at La Lonja in Barcelona. In 1900 he went with his family to Paris, where he frequented the artistic circles and kept in touch with Picasso, Gargallo and Brancusi, among others. Around 1910 he began to work with embossed metal masks, with a style marked by naturalistic and symbolist features, as well as by a new conception of the human figure, with synthesized volumes and lines. During these years, Gonzalez began to participate in the Parisian salons, specifically in the Autumn Salon, the Salon des Indépendants and the Salon of the National Society of Fine Arts. In 1920 he opened his own forge workshop, and two years later he made his individual debut at the Povolovsky Gallery in Paris. At the end of the 1920s he began to develop his first sculptures in wrought iron, a material that until then was considered merely decorative. During the thirties his work became more abstract, and the first spatial constructions appeared. After a long list of participations in solo and group exhibitions such as Spanish Art at the Jeu de Paume Museum (1936) or the Spanish Pavilion at the Universal Exhibition in Paris (1937), at the beginning of World War II his work, as a result of the shortage of iron, focuses on a new material, plaster, and on drawings with war themes. González is represented at the Georges Pompidou Center in Paris, the Reina Sofía in Madrid, the IVAM in Valencia and the MoMA in New York, among many others.