Julio González (1876-1942)

Tête couchée abstraite belongs to the most productive and important period of González's career, executed in 1930 during the artist's inspirational and ground-breaking collaboration with Picasso and the creation of his first masks and heads. The time González spent working in tandem with Picasso encouraged him to become a sculptor, asking Picasso for "permission to work in the same manner as himself, an idea which Picasso naturally encouraged" (Julio González: A Retrospective Exhibition, exh. cat., Zürich, Art Focus, 2002, p. 15).

The angular form and mask like face of Tête couchée abstraite displays the influence of Picasso's cubist works as well as his fascination with African masks. In 1906 the Louvre added to their existing collection of primitive art a group of archaic Iberian sculptures that had been recently excavated from sites in Southern Spain. Picasso was impressed by their strong lines and dense proportions, and his work soon came to be dominated by the figurative simplifications and monumental rhythms so explicit in the Louvre's collection. Roland Penrose has commented:

"There were many aspects of African sculpture that intrigued Picasso. The simplified features of Negro masks express with force the primeval terrors of the jungle, and their ferocious expressions or serene look of comprehension are frequently a reminder of the lost companionship between man and the animal kingdom. In more formal ways the able use of geometric shapes and patterns produces an abstract aesthetic delight in form. The simple basic shapes created by the circle and the straight line, the only unchanging features of beauty, are applied with startling aptitude. But above all it is the rich variety in which these elements exist and the vitality that radiates from Negro art that brought Picasso a new breath of inspiration...[in which] he found the necessary support to transgress academic prohibitions, to exceed established measures, and to put aesthetic laws in question" (R. Penrose, Picasso, His Life and Work, Paris, p. 54).