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The latest exhibition at the Centre Pompidou Malaga consists of around 50 works by Julio González.
Julio González, forging modernity at the Pompidou

Julio González, forging modernity at the Pompidou

The Malaga art centre's new exhibition highlights the creative process and evolution of style of this sculptor, who played a key role in the 20th century avant-garde movement

Antonio Javier López

Friday, 4 June 2021, 16:46

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Brigitte Leal, assistant director of the Georges Pompidou Modern Art Museum in Paris, describes Julio González as a "modest, but very powerful artist; discreet, but very profound" and visitors to the Pompidou Centre in Malaga can see that for themselves at the exhibition of his works which will be inaugurated on Tuesday.

THE EXHIBITION

  • Artist. Julio González (Barcelona, 1876 - Arcueil, 1942).

  • Where. Centre Pompidou Malaga.

  • Content. Around 50 works including sculptures, drawings, prints and photographs, on loan from the Georges Pompidou Centre National Art Museum in Paris.

  • Dates. Until 17 October.

  • Opening hours. Open every day except Tuesdays, from 9.30am to 8pm.

The display consists of around 50 sculptures, drawings, prints and photographs which reflect not only his creative process but the evolution of the style of an artist who is essential to understanding the avant-garde art of the early 20th century.

"González takes the artisan technique of soldering, which he learned when he was young, and takes it to new formal and stylistic limits," said Leal. She also explains that the drawings which he used to do to prepare for his works in metal were crucial, showing the whole creative process from the initial idea to the final sculpture. "In the drawings we don't just see how he creates a sculpture; we can also appreciate how the work itself evolves," she said.

One example is The Angel, the Insect, The Dancer (1935), which can be seen towards the end of this exhibition. Together with the sculpture of soldered wrought iron on a stone pedestal are a series of sketches on paper which show the transition from an initial and natural-looking figure to the enigmatic schematic silhouette which González called The Insect but which Picasso saw as an angel. "It is an angel of death, but also of life," said Brigitte Leal.

With Picasso

These two artists had a very special relationship. In the Picasso Museum in Paris there is a sketchbook in which Picasso had signed some of the drawings and Julio González had done others, and that was something very unusual in the way Picasso worked.

The link between them became even closer between 1928 and 1932, and this exhibition in Malaga contains three very important pieces from that period: a sculpture called Woman Combing her Hair I (1931) - accompanied by a delightful series of preparatory drawings - Sitting Woman III and The Giraffe, which dates back to 1935.

These clearly show González's talent for combining abstract linear sculptures with figures of heads and women lying down. By this stage, González had moved on from an earlier phase which was closer to figuration, as can be seen from the portraits on embossed copper of his sisters Pilar and Lola, which open the exhibition.

Evolution of style

That initial naturalism at the start of the 20th century would be left behind by this artist a few years later, as can be seen by two extraordinary pieces in the exhibition: the delightful Mask of Pilar (1929) and Head in depth (1930), which reflect the step González had taken towards Cubism.

He remained true to that affiliation until the end of his career, and this exhibition includes some important examples such as a series of drawings he did in 1939 and 1940, displayed alongside The Angel, The Insect, The Dancer, which could almost have been created by Picasso, on his journey between Cubism and realism.

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