FEMME AUX FAGOTS
1932
Médium: Fer, forgé, soudé, coupé, découpé, courbé
Dimensions: 36,5 x 14,6 x 10,2 cm
“Femme aux fagots (Woman with a bundle of sticks)” is a small-scale iron sculpture executed by Julio González in 1932, housed at the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington, DC.
This work, composed of cut, curved, forged and welded iron, depicts a peasant woman holding a bundle of sticks fashioned from iron rods under her right arm. Her left arm hangs at her side. Her stance is frontal, with her bust slightly turned to her left. Her body has been cut from scrap metal. Its angular contours mimic the vertical pieces of sheet iron disposed perpendicularly, behind and to the side of her, framing her. Round and triangular forms, representing her breasts, have been cut in relief from her chest. Three vertical rods fixed to the lower portion of her body represent the pleats in her skirt. These details add volume to her otherwise flat silhouette. The features of the left side of her face are visible, while the right side is a flat plane, as though obscured by shadow.
González revisits here the theme of the peasant woman, a constant throughout his career. The figure is both archaic, with its frontal, hieratic pose, and radically modern, with its cubistic geometrization and fragmentation of volume.
This work was created after González’s collaboration with Picasso on Guillaume Apollinaire’s funerary monument, a creative dialogue that gave him confidence and assurance to pursue his revolutionary personal work.
