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Lot Essay
Two abstracted hands reaching out as if appealing to the heavens in a combination of outrage and despair make their appearance in numerous Gonzlez drawings and figure studies of screaming women, cactus men and of the Montserrat between 1937 and 1939. Executed between 1937-38, Les deux mains is the largest in a small group of hand sculptures of this period that are a variation of the same theme.
Constructed out of thin sheets of iron heavily wrought and welded into an ascending progression of hollow tubular structures that sprouts from its rock base like some mechanical cactus plant, Les deux mains is a striking work that seems to encapsulate within its forms the spirit and raw energy of the metal from which it is made. Beated and pierced in places, moulded and melted and welded together in others with an astonishing variety of metal working techniques, Les deux mains has been animated by the fire of Gonzlez's torch to the point where it seems to have grown into an archetypal and an almost organic figure.
Constructed out of thin sheets of iron heavily wrought and welded into an ascending progression of hollow tubular structures that sprouts from its rock base like some mechanical cactus plant, Les deux mains is a striking work that seems to encapsulate within its forms the spirit and raw energy of the metal from which it is made. Beated and pierced in places, moulded and melted and welded together in others with an astonishing variety of metal working techniques, Les deux mains has been animated by the fire of Gonzlez's torch to the point where it seems to have grown into an archetypal and an almost organic figure.