Julio González

V-Shaped Head

1939

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Not on display

Artist: Julio González 1876–1942
Original title: Tête au V
Medium: Ink, graphite and watercolour on paper
Dimensions: Support: 406 × 305 mm
Collection: Tate
Acquisition: Presented by Mme Roberta Gonzalez-Richard, the artist's niece 1972
Reference: T01619

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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 González 1876-1942

T01619 Tête au V (V-Shaped Head) 1939

Inscribed '7-11-39 | J.G.' b.l.
Ink and wash and pencil on paper, 16 x 12 (40.6 x 30.5)
Presented by Roberta González 1972
Lit: Josette Gibert, Julio González Dessins: Scènes Paysannes (Paris 1975), p.349 repr.
Repr: Ronald Alley, The González Gift to the Tate Gallery (London 1974), p.38

There are two earlier drawings of similar forms (Gibert, op. cit., pp.345 and 346), one dated 28 June 1939 known as 'Head of a Shrieking Snail' and the other dated 29 June 1939 and known as 'Head with a Horn'.

[All the drawings by Julio González given to the Tate are authenticated on the back by his daughter Roberta González 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 González'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.320, reproduced p.320