Four drawings by Julio González are currently displayed at the Arkas Art Center in Turkey in the exhibition Picasso et les arts du spectacle which opened September 18 (through January 6, 2020). This exhibition explores the place of the performing arts in Picasso’s work, from theater to the corrida, and forms part of the ambitious cultural project “Picasso Méditerranée”, spearheaded by the Picasso-Paris National Museum.

González fits in to this exhibition as part of Picasso’s “galaxy”. The works displayed testify to the personal and artistic ties that bind the Catalan sculptor and Picasso beginning at the turn of the 20th century. Among González’s works displayed is L’Acrobate no. 2 (1906), which demonstrates his own interest in circus performers at the same time they were the focus of Picasso’s famous “Pink period”, as well as his fascination with the human body in movement. Etude de femme se coiffant (1930-31), one of several preparatory sketches for his iron sculpture of the same name, explores this latter theme through other formal means. Like works focused on performers or dancers, women “à leur toilette”–or combing their hair–allow González to explore the movement of the human body, which he translates into his personal artistic vocabulary between figuration and abstraction.

This rare opportunity to discover “another Picasso”, in the words of the curator, Jean-Luc Maeso, has already attracted some 12,000 visitors in the first ten days of the exhibition.