Julio gonzalez 1876-1942

Lot description

Julio gonzalez 1876-1942 Petite tete au triangle White metal Height (including base) 10 1/4 in. 26 cm. Height (excluding base) 9 1/4 in. 23.1 cm. Executed circa 1933. Provenance: Hans Hartung, Paris and Antibes (acquired from the artist); Fondation Hartung, Antibes (sold: Christie's, London, June 30, 1999, lot 315); Acquired at the above sale Exhibited: Paris, Musee National d'Art Moderne, Julio Gonzalez, 1952, no. 64 (titled Jeune fille); London, Tate Gallery; Montpellier, Musee Fabre, Julio Gonzalez, 1970-71, no. 67; New York, The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Julio Gonzalez: A Retrospective, 1983, no. 134; Frankfurt am Main, Stadtische Galerie im Stadelschen Kunstinstitut; Berlin, Akademie der Kunste, Julio Gonzalez 1876-1942, Plastiken, Zeichnungen, Kunstgewerbe, 1983, no. 76; Glasgow, Art Gallery & Museum; London, Whitechapel Art Gallery; Sheffield, Graves Art Gallery, Julio Gonzalez, 1990, no. 20; Paris, Galerie de France; Lugano, Galleria Pieter Coray, Une rencontre: Hans Hartung et Julio Gonzalez 1935-1952, 1992, no. 3; Bern, Kunstmuseum, Julio Gonzalez - Zeichnen im Raum/Dessiner dans l'espace, 1997, no. 116 Literature: William Tucker, "The Sculpture of Gonzalez," Studio International, London, December 1970, no. 928, illustrated p. 237; Vincente Aguilera Cerni, Julio, Joan, Roberta Gonzalez - Itinerario de una dinastia, Barcelona, 1973, no. 217, illustrated p. 264; Josephine Withers, Julio Gonzalez, Sculpture in Iron, New York, 1978, no. 61, illustrated p. 59; Michael FitzGerald, "Julio Gonzalez in plain view," ARTS Magazine, New York, June 1983, illustrated p. 59; Jorn Merkert, Julio Gonzalez, catalogue raisonne des sculptures, Milan, 1987, no. 149, illustrated p. 147 Julio Gonzalez is regarded alongside Brancusi, Picasso and Giacometti, as one of the pioneers of modern sculpture, the father of a tradition of welded iron sculpture that extends from the early 1930s to the present day. It is his production of the 1930s, which includes such seminal works as Petite tete au triangle, that has earned him this reputation. During this decade Gonzalez, who had never been a prolific artist, produced an unpredecented run of constructed metal masterpieces that radically transformed the nature of modern sculpture, opening new paths for a younger generation of sculptors ranging from David Smith to Anthony Caro and Eduardo Chillida (see figs. 1 & 3). The dramatic transformation of Gonzalez's sculptural language, that produced some of the most revolutionary and exciting three-dimensional works of the 20th Century, came about through his celebrated collaboration with Picasso. Though the two Spanish artists had long known each other, it was not until October 1928 that Picasso decided to employ his friend's technical knowledge, and especially his oxyacetylene welding expertise, to help him translate his latest figure studies into three dimensional form (see fig. 2). The resulting wire constructions Gonzalez executed for Picasso in his metalworker's smithy at 11 rue de Medeah, liberated both artists' creative potential in this medium. Both interior and exterior spaces were articulated as integral parts of the sculpture itself. The constructive technique of building with welded iron forms allowed Gonzalez to develop from the rather crude and Cubist-inspired masks of the 1920s into a fully rounded play of mass, space and volume, producing geometrical, transparent sculptures such as Petite tete au triangle. Gonzalez himself commented in 1930: "The real problem to be solved here is not only to strive to make a harmonious work, a fine and perfectly balanced whole - No! But to achieve this [result] through the marriage of the materials and space, through the union of real forms with imagined forms... to mingle and make them inseparable one from another, as are the body and spirit... If the synthetic distortions of materials, color and light, the perforations, the absence of material planes give the work a mysterious, diabolical and fantastic appearance, then the artist, in addition to idealizing a material which he endows with life, also works with space, which will make it sacred... To project and draw in space with the help of new devices, to use this space and construct with it as if it were a newly acquired material - that is my endeavour." (Quoted in Josephine Withers, Julio Gonzalez; Sculpture in Iron, New York, 1978, p. 141). Whilst Gonzalez learned a great deal from his collaboration with Picasso, the two artists' sculptural work rapidly diverged after 1931. Picasso, fascinated and inspired by his new mistress Marie-Therese Walter, abandoned what Kahnweiler had termed 'drawing in sculpture' in favor of the famed monumental and classicizing figurative heads he made in plaster at Boisgeloup. Gonzalez, on the other hand, continued to explore the welded-metal idiom, and his vision and technique quickly evolved independently of Picasso's influence. His deeper understanding of metal and its properties produced in the artist a heightened awareness of the iconographic potential he had discovered, and he continued to explore the infinite possibilities of the assemblage principle and the translation of conventional subject matter into expressive cyphers or signs. The sculpture Gonzalez proceeded to make in the 1930s stands apart from almost all other work of the period. In a decade dominated by Surrealism, Constructivism and Abstraction, Gonzalez created a series of unique works that belong to none of these movements or ideologies, yet have elements common to them all. A sketch relating to the present work, probably executed just after the sculpture was made, will be sold as lot 88.