About This Artwork

Julio González
Spanish, 1876–1942

Woman with Hair in a Bun, c. 1930

Iron on stone base
21 1/2 x 8 x 8 1/4 in. (54.6 x 20.3 x 21 cm)
none
Ada Turnbull Hertle, Laura R. Magnuson, Samuel A. Marx, and Morris L. Parker funds, 1981.648

Julio González came to sculpture at the age of fifty, having first established himself as a painter in Paris. Woman with Hair in a Bun is one of approximately thirty heads that González fabricated during the first, and most experimental, phase of his evolution as a sculptor.

González presents a traditional subject in a revolutionary manner: rather than carving a block of stone or wood, or modeling with clay or plaster, González welded several oval and rectangular pieces of iron together to indicate his sitter's features. The sculpture's power derives from its combination of abstract shapes with pointed references to the human form, culminating in a thin, triangular chignon jutting out from the head. A rough, irregularly shaped stone base both enhances these crisp contours and imparts a solidity typical of more conventional sculpture.

Exhibition, Publication and Ownership Histories

Exhibition History

Paris, 1952, cat. 66.

Amsterdam, Stedelijk Museum, Julio Gonzalez, April 5–May 10, 1955, cat. b. (ill.); traveled to Brussels, Palais des Beaux-Art, May 20–June 19, 1955.

New York, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Julio González: A Retrospective, 1983, p. 99, cat. 106 (ill.).

Publication History

P. G. Brugière, “Julio Gonzalez: Les étapas de l’oeuvre,” Cahiers d’art 27:1 (1952), p. 27 (ill.).

Julio González (Bern, 1955) (ill.).

Julio González (La Chaux-de-Fonds, 1955) (ill.).

Vicente Aguilera Cerni, Julio, Joan, Roberta González: Itinerario de una Dinastía (Barcelona: Ediciones Polígrafa, 1973), p. 206, no. 143 (ill.).

Josephine Withers, Julio Gonzalez: Sculpture in Iron (New York: New York University Press, 1978), p. 160, no. 47.

The Art Institute of Chicago Annual Report (1981–1982), pp. 13, 14, and 39 (ill.).

Margit Rowell, Julio González: A Retrospective, exh. cat. (New York, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, 1983), p. 99, cat. 106 (ill.).

Jörn Merkert, Julio González: Catalogue raisonné des sculptures (Milan: Electa, 1987), pp. 108–109, no. 124 (ill.).

James N. Wood and Teri J. Edelstein, The Art Institute of Chicago: Twentieth-Century Painting and Sculpture (Chicago: The Art Institute of Chicago, 1996), p. 61 (ill.).

Ownership History

Julio González, Paris. André Salmon, Sanary. Private Collection, Paris, by 1973 [Cerni 1973]. Sold by B. C. Holland, Chicago, to the Art Institute, 1981.