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Lot Essay
The first in an edition of nine bronze casts made from the original stone sculpture, Tte d'homme couch barbe (Sleeping head of a bearded man) is the most expressive of a number of remarkable reclining stone heads executed by Gonzlez in the 1930s that recall the work of Brancusi.
Gonzlez first met Brancusi in 1908, but it was not until the early 1920s that the two artists became close when they met again through the regular Sunday afternoon artistic gatherings organised by Torres-Garcia. Both quiet and softly spoken in their manner, Gonzlez and Brancusi were men whose natural reticence meant that they tended to avoid the outgoing environment of caf society which so many of their contemporaries frequented and enjoyed. Finding in one another a shared attitude to life and a mutual understanding, the two sculptors soon became regular visitors to each others households and genuine friends.
Despite their friendship, or indeed perhaps because of it, it has become clear that neither artist tried to teach the other anything. Yet it is, however, also clear that some of Gonzlez's iron masks of the early 1930s and the series of reclining stone heads to which Tte d'homme couch barbe belongs, undoubtedly owe much to Brancusi. The latters revolutionary act of laying his own sculptured heads down in such a way that, deprived of support from the neck, they support themselves and open up a variety of new spatial possiblities echoes Gonzlez's own work.
The present work has been carved in such a way as to deliberately accentuate the sculptural ramifications of this Brancusian feature and to stress the 'dead' weight of a head as it rests firmly and solidly on the ground. Gonzlez has chiseled out the rugged features of the man's face in a way that emphasises the pull of gravity and lends a tremendous sense of density to the work so that its character is in complete accord with the heavy nature of the material he has used. Horizontal, like a landscape punctuated by the head's bodily carved features and its large somnulent eyes, this powerfully expressive carving seems to visually articulate the very meaning of the phrase 'to sleep like a stone'.
Gonzlez first met Brancusi in 1908, but it was not until the early 1920s that the two artists became close when they met again through the regular Sunday afternoon artistic gatherings organised by Torres-Garcia. Both quiet and softly spoken in their manner, Gonzlez and Brancusi were men whose natural reticence meant that they tended to avoid the outgoing environment of caf society which so many of their contemporaries frequented and enjoyed. Finding in one another a shared attitude to life and a mutual understanding, the two sculptors soon became regular visitors to each others households and genuine friends.
Despite their friendship, or indeed perhaps because of it, it has become clear that neither artist tried to teach the other anything. Yet it is, however, also clear that some of Gonzlez's iron masks of the early 1930s and the series of reclining stone heads to which Tte d'homme couch barbe belongs, undoubtedly owe much to Brancusi. The latters revolutionary act of laying his own sculptured heads down in such a way that, deprived of support from the neck, they support themselves and open up a variety of new spatial possiblities echoes Gonzlez's own work.
The present work has been carved in such a way as to deliberately accentuate the sculptural ramifications of this Brancusian feature and to stress the 'dead' weight of a head as it rests firmly and solidly on the ground. Gonzlez has chiseled out the rugged features of the man's face in a way that emphasises the pull of gravity and lends a tremendous sense of density to the work so that its character is in complete accord with the heavy nature of the material he has used. Horizontal, like a landscape punctuated by the head's bodily carved features and its large somnulent eyes, this powerfully expressive carving seems to visually articulate the very meaning of the phrase 'to sleep like a stone'.