Femme au miroir 1937

Julio Gonzalez built this sculpture from iron, figuring out how to make something strong and expressive. The sculpture is almost skeletal, a figure pieced together from found bits of metal, a bit like drawing in space with heavy, dark lines. I imagine Gonzalez in his workshop, sparks flying as he welds and bends the iron, trying to capture a sense of the figure in a mirror, maybe thinking about cubism and how to break down form. The iron, so industrial and rigid, is transformed into something delicate and emotional. The shapes are not just shapes, they’re feelings, rendered in metal. That spiraling curve at the top—is that the mirror? Is it the eye? The way the metal seems both heavy and weightless reminds me of Picasso's way of playing with form, but Gonzalez has made it his own. It shows how artists build upon each other's ideas, pushing the boundaries.