Julio Gonzalez
Deux études pour monsieur Cactus (L'homme Cactus I)
Date 1939
Medium Pencil, colour crayon and indian ink on paper
Dimensions 31 x 20 cm
Inventory ID UID 102-221
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On 24 August 1939 Julio González finished L’Homme cactus I [Cactus Man] (IVAM, Valencia) – his penultimate metamorphic sculpture – followed by its double, L’Homme cactus II (Staatliche Kunsthalle, Karlsruhe), which dates from January-March 1940. The many studies of these sculptures that are known to exist reveal the avatars of this half-human, half-vegetable figure with multiple meanings, in which masculine and feminine attributes are mixed. Nevertheless, owing to their visual violence, these militant emblems should be associated with the events that traumatised the sculptor at the time: the Civil War in Spain, the rise of fascism and the likelihood of a new war. AC
Acquired from Julio González’s heirs, Paris.