Julio González

Figure with Three Balls, No. 2

1942

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Artist: Julio González 1876–1942
Original title: Personnage aux trois boules no. 2
Medium: Pastel on paper
Dimensions: Support: 267 × 190 mm
Collection: Tate
Acquisition: Presented by Mme Roberta Gonzalez-Richard, the artist's niece 1972
Reference: T01637

Display caption

González used drawing as a primary way of exploring his ideas. These drawings, made over a six-year period, show how his abstract idiom was rooted in reality and, especially, in the figure. González concentrated on upright structures that, if translated into sculpture, would make use of the strength and balance available from welded iron. This group gives a sense of his inventiveness as he worked towards images with a high emotional charge.

Gallery label, August 2004

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Catalogue entry

Julio Gonzalez 1876-1942

T01637 Personnage aux Trois Boules No.2 (Figure with Three Balls No.2) 1942

Inscribed '31-1-42 | J.G.' b.l.
Chalk on paper, 10 1/2 x 7 1/2 (26.6 x 19.1)
Presented by Roberta Gonzalez 1972
Lit: Josette Gibert, Julio Gonzalez Dessins: Projets pour Sculptures: Personnages (Paris 1975), p.175 repr.
Repr: Cahiers d'Art, 1947, p.136 (top-right drawing)

There are three other drawings of related forms all dated the previous day, 30 January 1942 (Gibert, op. cit., pp.173-4), including one known as 'Figure with Three Balls No.1'.

[All the drawings by Julio Gonzalez given to the Tate are authenticated on the back by his daughter Roberta Gonzalez and inscribed with a title and date, or approximate date. The titles are used in the catalogue entries, but the dating has been made more precise wherever possible. (Julio Gonzalez's drawings are usually dated from about 1934 onwards, but the great majority of the early drawings are undated).]

Published in:
Ronald Alley, Catalogue of the Tate Gallery's Collection of Modern Art other than Works by British Artists, Tate Gallery and Sotheby Parke-Bernet, London 1981, p.327, reproduced p.327