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Lot Essay
By all accounts the war broke Gonzlez. In May 1940, he and his family feld Paris for the south of France. The shortages of materials because of rationing and the fear of bombs fallling on his highly explosive welding materials prevented the sixty-four year old artist from making any iron sculpture. The Nazi occupation also forced Gonzlez's son-in-law, Hans Hartung, a German exile considered a deserter by the Nazi authorities, into hiding and to eventually flee France altogether to join the Free French forces in Spain.
In the autumn of 1941, Gonzlez, demoralised and fearful decided to return to Paris and the Occupied zone with his wife, Marie Thrse. Here in the last six months of his life, he produced only three modeled sculptures, two of which remained unfinished at his death.
Marie Thrse II is the last completed structure that Gonzlez ever made. It is a lovingly modeled portrait of Marie-Thrse Roux, the woman whom he married in 1937 and with whom he had lived since 1928. His only companion in the last depressing and lonely days of his life in occupied Paris, this unique cast is a gentle homage to the woman who had sustained the encouraged him through the greatest years of his artistic career.
In the autumn of 1941, Gonzlez, demoralised and fearful decided to return to Paris and the Occupied zone with his wife, Marie Thrse. Here in the last six months of his life, he produced only three modeled sculptures, two of which remained unfinished at his death.
Marie Thrse II is the last completed structure that Gonzlez ever made. It is a lovingly modeled portrait of Marie-Thrse Roux, the woman whom he married in 1937 and with whom he had lived since 1928. His only companion in the last depressing and lonely days of his life in occupied Paris, this unique cast is a gentle homage to the woman who had sustained the encouraged him through the greatest years of his artistic career.