Julio González (sculptor)
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Julio González i Pellicer (21 September 1876 – 27 March 1942), born in Barcelona, was a Spanish sculptor and painter who developed the expressive use of iron as a medium for modern
sculpture Sculpture is the branch of the visual arts that operates in three dimensions. Sculpture is the three-dimensional art work which is physically presented in the dimensions of height, width and depth. It is one of the plastic arts. Durable sc ...
. He was from a lineage of metalsmith workers and artists. His grandfather was a goldsmith worker and his father, Concordio González, a metalsmith worker who taught him the techniques of metalsmith in his childhood years. His mother, Pilar Pellicer Fenés, came from a long line of artists. González attended Circol Artist Sant Luc, a Catholic school whose model of education was based on the medieval art guilds and influenced by the Arts and Crafts movement in England.


Biography


Early life

Julio González Pellicer was born in
Barcelona Barcelona ( ; ; ) is a city on the northeastern coast of Spain. It is the capital and largest city of the autonomous community of Catalonia, as well as the second-most populous municipality of Spain. With a population of 1.6 million within c ...
, on September 21, 1876. He came from a line of metalsmith workers; his grandfather was a goldsmith in Galicia. González's father, Concordio González, owned a workshop and as a young boy, González learned from him the techniques of gold, silver, and iron metalwork. He and his older brother, Joan González, both studied these techniques. Further, all three González children studied at Circol Artist Sant Luc, a Catholic school that remodeled its education on the medieval art guilds, influenced by the Arts and Crafts movement in England. In 1896, González's father, died. The family workshop was passed onto the older son, Joan. With Joan directly involved with the family workshop, Joan and Julio focused on their metalwork techniques and artistic aspirations. By the end of the century, both brothers began to frequent Els Quatre Gats, a
café A coffeehouse, coffee shop, or café (), is an establishment that serves various types of coffee, espresso, latte, americano and cappuccino, among other hot beverages. Many coffeehouses in West Asia offer ''shisha'' (actually called ''nargi ...
which was the meeting point of many artists, especially those related with modernisme. It was there where they met artists like
Joan Miró Joan Miró i Ferrà ( , ; ; 20 April 1893 – 25 December 1983) was a Catalan Spanish painter, sculptor and Ceramic art, ceramist. A museum dedicated to his work, the Fundació Joan Miró, was established in his native city of Barcelona ...
and
Pablo Picasso Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso (25 October 1881 – 8 April 1973) was a Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, Ceramic art, ceramicist, and Scenic ...
. By the turn of the 20th century, Pablo Picasso and González became great friends. González moved to Paris in 1902, but traveled to Barcelona several times in the early 20th century. At the Picasso Museum in Barcelona, their close friendship is verified by a drawn portrait, entitled "Julio González and the Robust Man Seen from Behind". They remained close friends until 1908; scholars do not know why their friendship ended at this time, but based on González archival materials, it appears to be related to an earlier dispute with Julio's brother, Joan.


Paris

In Paris he associated with the Spanish circle of artists of
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, including Pablo Gargallo, Juan Gris and Max Jacob. In 1918, he developed an interest in the artistic possibilities of
welding Welding is a fabrication (metal), fabrication process that joins materials, usually metals or thermoplastics, primarily by using high temperature to melting, melt the parts together and allow them to cool, causing Fusion welding, fusion. Co ...
, after learning the technique whilst working in the
Renault Renault S.A., commonly referred to as Groupe Renault ( , , , also known as the Renault Group in English), is a French Multinational corporation, multinational Automotive industry, automobile manufacturer established in 1899. The company curr ...
factory A factory, manufacturing plant or production plant is an industrial facility, often a complex consisting of several buildings filled with machinery, where workers manufacture items or operate machines which process each item into another. Th ...
at
Boulogne-Billancourt Boulogne-Billancourt (; often colloquially called simply Boulogne, until 1924 Boulogne-sur-Seine, ) is a wealthy and prestigious Communes of France, commune in the western suburbs of Paris, France, located from the Kilometre zero, centre of Paris ...
. This technique would subsequently become his principal contribution to sculpture, though during this period he also painted and—especially—created jewellery pieces. In 1920 he renewed his acquaintance with Picasso, for whom he later provided technical assistance in executing sculptures in iron, participating in Picasso's research on analytic cubism. He also forged the infrastructures of Constantin Brâncuși's plasters.''
Le Monde (; ) is a mass media in France, French daily afternoon list of newspapers in France, newspaper. It is the main publication of Le Monde Group and reported an average print circulation, circulation of 480,000 copies per issue in 2022, including ...
''
Julio Gonzalez, la révolution du fer
4 July 2007
In the winter of 1927–28, he showed Picasso how to use
oxy-fuel welding and cutting Principle of burn cutting Oxy-fuel welding (commonly called oxyacetylene welding, oxy welding, or gas welding in the United States) and oxy-fuel cutting are processes that use fuel gases (or liquid fuels such as gasoline or petrol, diesel, bio ...
. When their friendship re-established itself, Picasso and González collaborated on a piece called ''Woman in the Garden'' between 1928 and 1930. From October 1928 till 1932, both men worked together—and in 1932, González was the only artist with whom Picasso shared his own personal art notebook. Influenced by Picasso, the fifty-year-old González deeply changed his style, exchanging bronze for iron, and volumes for lines. González began to formalize a new visual language in sculpture that would change the course of his career. File:(Barcelona) Cap cridant 113516 - Juli González - Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya.jpg, ''Cap cridant'',
Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya The (; ), abbreviated as MNAC (), is a museum of Catalonia, Catalan visual art located in Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain. Situated on Montjuïc hill at the end of Avinguda de la Reina Maria Cristina, near Plaça d'Espanya, Barcelona, Pl Espanya, th ...
File:(Barcelona) Autoretrat - Julio González - Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya.jpg, Self-portrait 1920,
Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya The (; ), abbreviated as MNAC (), is a museum of Catalonia, Catalan visual art located in Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain. Situated on Montjuïc hill at the end of Avinguda de la Reina Maria Cristina, near Plaça d'Espanya, Barcelona, Pl Espanya, th ...
File:Visage01 González.jpg, ''Visage criant a la grande main'', 1941. File:Julio Gonzalez portrait.jpg, Self portrait, 1920, Institut Valencià d'Art Modern dit


Ironwork (1932–1937)

González created ironwork at this time that would establish him as "the father of all iron sculpture of this century". During the early 1930s, few artists utilized
forged Forging is a manufacturing process involving the shaping of metal using localized compression (physics), compressive forces. The blows are delivered with a hammer (often a power hammer) or a die (manufacturing), die. Forging is often classif ...
or welded metal as a potential medium for their art. This is because, at the time, many artists did not directly work with the medium. Rather, artists worked with a
foundry A foundry is a factory that produces metal castings. Metals are cast into shapes by melting them into a liquid, pouring the metal into a mold, and removing the mold material after the metal has solidified as it cools. The most common metals pr ...
and expert technicians to execute the works of art. González was unique in this instance because his work demanded an active interaction- something that required the skills shaped by a long and specialized apprenticeship. In 1937 he contributed to the Spanish Pavilion at the World Fair in Paris (''La Montserrat'', standing near '' Guernica''), and to ''Cubism and Abstract Art'' at the
Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street (Manhattan), 53rd Street between Fifth Avenue, Fifth and Sixth Avenues. MoMA's collection spans the late 19th century to the present, a ...
in New York.


Later years (1938–1942)

In the late 1930s González worked with naturalistic and abstract forms. The art he produced during this period, similar to other Spanish loyalist republican artists living abroad during the Spanish Civil War, reflected the pain and torment they felt. Significant amongst these pieces was his 1939 abstract sculpture ''Monsieur Cactus (Cactus Man I)'' which was influential on the development of avant-garde sculpture. Several of the exploratory drawings for the sculpture " .... suggest that the figure is shrieking; the prickly nails intensify the aggressive effect of the work, recalling Picasso’s use of nails in his ''Guitar'' of 1926." As González aged between 1938 and 1940, he drew more. These later works, as scholar Joseph Withers states, "touch on larger problems and personal concerns which necessitated our discussion of these works in the context of González's evidently pessimistic reaction to the Spanish Civil War and the Second World War. González was directly affected by the Second World War; his daughter Roberta González married German painter—and Julio's assistant— Hans Hartung in 1938. When the German invasion occurred in France, the couple had to separate from the rest of the family since Hans Hartung was an anti-Nazi and was wanted by the German secret police. While separated from his daughter and son-in-law, González drew figurative drawings and worked on plaster casts. The drawings and castings produced during the last two years of his life are testimonies to the suffering and despair González felt towards tyranny and war. González died in Arcueil on March 27, 1942.


Public collections

The
Art Institute of Chicago The Art Institute of Chicago, founded in 1879, is one of the oldest and largest art museums in the United States. The museum is based in the Art Institute of Chicago Building in Chicago's Grant Park (Chicago), Grant Park. Its collection, stewa ...
, the
Cleveland Museum of Art The Cleveland Museum of Art (CMA) is an art museum in Cleveland, Ohio, United States. Located in the Wade Park District of University Circle, the museum is internationally renowned for its substantial holdings of Asian art, Asian and Art of anc ...
, the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden (Washington D.C.), the
Honolulu Museum of Art The Honolulu Museum of Art (formerly the Honolulu Academy of Arts) is an art museum in Honolulu, Hawaii, Hawaii. The museum is the largest of its kind in the state, and was founded in 1922 by Anna Rice Cooke. It has one of the largest single co ...
, the Kröller-Müller Museum (Otterlo, Netherlands), the
Los Angeles County Museum of Art The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) is an art museum located on Wilshire Boulevard in the Miracle Mile vicinity of Los Angeles. LACMA is on Museum Row, adjacent to the La Brea Tar Pits (George C. Page Museum). LACMA was founded in 1961 ...
, the Luís Ángel Arango Library (Bogotá, Colombia), the Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art (Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois), Musée des Beaux-Arts de Rennes (France), Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía (Madrid), Museo Patio Herreriano de Valladolid (Spain),
Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya The (; ), abbreviated as MNAC (), is a museum of Catalonia, Catalan visual art located in Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain. Situated on Montjuïc hill at the end of Avinguda de la Reina Maria Cristina, near Plaça d'Espanya, Barcelona, Pl Espanya, th ...
(Barcelona, Spain), the
Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street (Manhattan), 53rd Street between Fifth Avenue, Fifth and Sixth Avenues. MoMA's collection spans the late 19th century to the present, a ...
(New York City), the Nasher Sculpture Center (Dallas, Texas), the National Gallery of Scotland (Edinburgh), the Peggy Guggenheim Collection (Venice), the
Philadelphia Museum of Art The Philadelphia Museum of Art (PMA) is an List of art museums#North America, art museum originally chartered in 1876 for the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. The main museum building was completed in 1928 on Fairmount, a hill located at ...
, the
Pompidou Center The Centre Pompidou (), more fully the (), also known as the Pompidou Centre in English and colloquially as Beaubourg, is a building complex in Paris, France. It was designed in the style of high-tech architecture by the architectural team of ...
(Paris), the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum (New York City), and the Tate Gallery (London) are among the public collections holding work by Julio González. The biggest collection of this artist's work is held by the IVAM (Valencia's Institute of Modern Art), in the city of Valencia, Spain, with close to 400 pieces.


Gallery

File:Mà gitada (Main couchée), Julio González, Institut Valencià d'Art Modern.JPG, Mà gitada (Main couchée), 1937, wrought iron, 19 x 29,5 x 2,7 cm. Institut Valencià d'Art Modern File:Ballarina amb margarida, 1937, Julio González, Institut Valencià d'Art Modern.jpg, Ballarina amb margarida, (Danseuse à la marguerite), 1937, wrought iron, 48,3 x 29,2 x 10 cm, Institut Valencià d'Art Modern File:Màscara de Montserrat cridant, Julio González, Institut Valencià d'Art Modern.JPG, Màscara de Montserrat cridant (Masque de Montserrat criant), bronze, 32,8 x 14,9 x 12 cm, c. 1938–39, Institut Valencià d'Art Modern File:Petite masque baroque, Juli González, Institut Valencià d'Art Modern.JPG, Petite masque baroque (Xicoteta màscara barroca), wrought iron, 12,5 x 11,2 x 1,8 cm, c. 1927–1929, Institut Valencià d'Art Modern File:Dona davant l'espill (Femme au miroir), Julio González, Institut Valencià d'Art Modern.JPG, Dona davant l'espill (Femme au miroir), wrought iron, 208,8 x 60 x 46 cm, c.1936–1937, Institut Valencià d'Art Modern File:Cap de Montserrat cridant, Juli González, Institut Valencià d'Art Modern.JPG, Cap de Montserrat cridant (Tête de Montserrat criant), 1942, chalk, 32 x 20 x 30 cm. Institut Valencià d'Art Modern File:Nu dempeus melangiós, Julio González, Institut Valencià d'art Modern.jpg, Nu dempeus melangiós (Nu debout mélancolique), c. 1910–14, chalk, 26'5 x 6'5 x 9'5 cm, Institut Valencià d'art Modern File:Julio Gonzalez 4.jpg, ''Femme coiffant une jeune fille (Mujer peinando a una joven), c.'' 1912–14, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid File:Julio Gonzalez 3.jpg, ''Maternité au clocher (Maternidad del campanario), c.'' 1920–28 Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid File:La petite faucille, Julio González-2.jpg, ''La petite faucille'' (''La pequeña hoz)'', c. 1937, bronze, Museo de Escultura al Aire Libre de la Castellana, Madrid


References


Further reading

* Nancy Marmer, "Julio González: Sculpture in Iron," ''Art in America,'' November/December 1978, pp. 23–24.


External links


Guggenheim Museum biography





IVAM (Valencia’s Institute of Modern Art)
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Gonzalez, Julio 1876 births 1942 deaths Sculptors from Catalonia Painters from Barcelona Spanish modern sculptors Spanish modern painters Spanish cubist artists 20th-century Spanish sculptors 20th-century Spanish male artists Spanish male sculptors Spanish expatriates in France