GONZLEZ, JULIO

born 1876, Barcelona, Spain died 1942, Arcueil, France Spanish sculptor and painter who developed the expressive use of iron as a medium for modern sculpture. Gonzlez received his artistic training in his native Barcelona from his father and grandfather, as well as at the School of Fine Arts. The family moved to Paris in 1900, where Gonzlez, through his old Barcelona friend Pablo Picasso, became acquainted with the leaders of the Parisian avant-garde. Until his brother Jean's death in 1908, Gonzlez was a painter. He then gave up painting and for the next 15 years experimented with metal sculpture while living in solitude and poverty. In 1927 he made his first sculptures in welded iron, the medium characteristically associated with his works. In the early 1930s his style was influenced by Constructivism. Later in the '30s his style became more naturalistic, and he produced what is often considered his finest sculpture, "Montserrat I" (1936-37), a work inspired by the horrors and injustices of the Spanish Civil War.