Julio González was a Spanish painter, sculptor and metalworker, whose career spanned the birth and development of French and Spanish Cubism.
González’s father was a part-time sculptor and his grandfather had been a goldsmith in Galicia. From a young age, he and his eldest brother, Joan, learnt decorative metal work techniques in their father’s workshop in Barcelona. González learnt to work with gold, silver and iron. Alongside their work, he and his brother took evening classes at the School of Fine Arts. González began to exhibit his metal work at the Exhibition of Fine Arts and Artistic Industries in 1892, 1896 and 1898, and in 1893 he exhibited at the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago. Both brothers joined the artistic society, Sant Lluc Artistic Circle, which espoused the benefits of humility and Catholic morals in the arts, crafts and craft guilds. Among its members were Antoni Gaudí and Joaquín Torres-García. It was at this time that González began to visit The Four Cats, a cafe in Barcelona, frequented by artist members of the same society along with others such as Pablo Picasso.
González moved to Paris in 1900, along with the rest of his family; in the same year, he produced his first embossed metalwork. Over the course of the 1900s and 1910s González exhibited on multiple occasions with the National Society of Fine Arts, the Independent Artists Fair, and the Autumn Fair. It was while working at a Renault armament factory in Boulogne-Billancourt in 1918 that González learned autogenous welding that would become crucial to his sculptures. In 1922, González had his first solo exhibition at Povolovsky Gallery in Paris, where he demonstrated his versatility as an artist by exhibiting painting, jewellery, sculpture and objets d’art. The following year he had another solo show this time at Chameleon Gallery.
The first of his iron sculptures that he became so renowned for were made in 1927. Having reestablished his friendship with Picasso in the early 1920s, the two began working together in 1928. In a four year period their collaboration pushed the boundaries of sculpture and culminated in Picasso’s Woman in the Garden, 1929-30, which not only deeply affected modern sculpture but also the practices of both artists thereafter.
González was given a solo exhibition at Gallery of France in Paris in 1937. His final major exhibitions saw him contribute to the Spanish Pavilion at the World's Fair in Paris and to the Met Museum’s Cubism and Abstract Art exhibition, both also in 1937. That same year González moved to Arcueil, where he died in 1942, aged 68.
González had a lasting impact on the practice of sculpture in the 20th Century; from his use of metal and welding to the abstract and linear open forms he described as 'drawing in space'. You can trace his influence through movements like Constructivism and artists such as Anthony Caro, William Tucker and Eduardo Chillida.