Julio González is considered as the mentor of iron sculpture and one of the most important artists of the first half of the twentieth century. The son of a goldsmith, he studied at the Cercle Artístic Sant Lluc in his hometown while working in the family workshop where he trained in the art of iron forging and casting. In 1899 he moved to Paris, meeting Pablo Picasso almost on his arrival. It was while he was painting in pastel, under the influence of the painters Edgar Degas and Puvis de Chavannes, that he first began to make iron sculptures. In 1916 he worked in a factory supplying armaments for the war effort. There he learnt the industrial technique of combustion welding, which was to stand him in great stead some years later in his artistic work.
Towards the end of the 1920s he abandoned painting to focus on sculpture, creating masks and still lifes with clear cubist influences. During this period, he struck up a friendship with Pablo Gargallo and Constantin Brâncuși. In the 1930s, he made what was to be his greatest contribution to the history of modern sculpture, what he himself called 'drawing in space'. He collaborated with Picasso in the creation of several versions of Woman in the Garden. The simple planes that form the masses of the piece and contain certain figurative references, are joined by way of a fine, precarious structure, in which both line and void are essential in forming the volumes. He made works such as La Montserrat — displayed in the Spanish Pavilion at the Paris Exposition in 1937 — and Woman with Mirror, the first in a series of larger works. His work combines pieces with figurative references and others which, despite containing echoes of reality, appear more abstract, like outlines of the visible, whose titles give some clue to their meaning.
The most important collection of the Catalan sculptor's work is now in the Valencia Institute of Modern Art (Valencia). His work has been included in anthological exhibitions in major museums around the world, inter alia the Museum of Modern Art (New York, 1969); the Tate Gallery (London, 1970); the Musée Picasso de Antibes (France, 1990); the National Art Museum of Catalonia and the Reina Sofía Museum (Barcelona and Madrid, 2008); and the Whitechapel Art Gallery (London, 1990).
Julio González is considered as the mentor of iron sculpture and one of the most important artists of the first half of the twentieth century. The son of a goldsmith, he studied at the Cercle Artístic Sant Lluc in his hometown while working in the family workshop where he trained in the art of iron forging and casting. In 1899 he moved to Paris, meeting Pablo Picasso almost on his arrival. It was while he was painting in pastel, under the influence of the painters Edgar Degas and Puvis de Chavannes, that he first began to make iron sculptures. In 1916 he worked in a factory supplying armaments for the war effort. There he learnt the industrial technique of combustion welding, which was to stand him in great stead some years later in his artistic work.
Towards the end of the 1920s he abandoned painting to focus on sculpture, creating masks and still lifes with clear cubist influences. During this period, he struck up a friendship with Pablo Gargallo and Constantin Brâncuși. In the 1930s, he made what was to be his greatest contribution to the history of modern sculpture, what he himself called 'drawing in space'. He collaborated with Picasso in the creation of several versions of Woman in the Garden. The simple planes that form the masses of the piece and contain certain figurative references, are joined by way of a fine, precarious structure, in which both line and void are essential in forming the volumes. He made works such as La Montserrat — displayed in the Spanish Pavilion at the Paris Exposition in 1937 — and Woman with Mirror, the first in a series of larger works. His work combines pieces with figurative references and others which, despite containing echoes of reality, appear more abstract, like outlines of the visible, whose titles give some clue to their meaning.
The most important collection of the Catalan sculptor's work is now in the Valencia Institute of Modern Art (Valencia). His work has been included in anthological exhibitions in major museums around the world, inter alia the Museum of Modern Art (New York, 1969); the Tate Gallery (London, 1970); the Musée Picasso de Antibes (France, 1990); the National Art Museum of Catalonia and the Reina Sofía Museum (Barcelona and Madrid, 2008); and the Whitechapel Art Gallery (London, 1990).