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Julio González was a Spanish sculptor and painter whose pioneering use of welded iron transformed the possibilities of modern sculpture.

Born in Barcelona in 1876 into a family of metalworkers, González learned to forge and work metal in his father’s workshop alongside his brother Joan. He also studied drawing and painting, but this practical knowledge of metal would become the foundation of his mature artistic practice.

In 1900, González moved to Paris with his family, settling in Montparnasse and becoming part of the city’s vibrant avant-garde. He reconnected with artists including Pablo Picasso — whom he had first known in Barcelona — while also encountering Constantin Brâncuși, Pablo Gargallo and other artists who were exploring new relationships between form and material. During these early years, González worked across painting, drawing, sculptures and decorative metalwork, exhibiting paintings at the Salon des Indépendants and experimenting with repoussé metal sculpture.

A decisive turning point came during World War I, when González learnt autogenous welding in a French factory. The technique radically changed his approach to sculpture, allowing him to construct rather than carve or model form. By the late 1920s, he was transforming iron into an expression of lines, planes and open structures, making the surrounding void an active part of the work. This blurred the boundaries between artistic and industrial practice and, in 1929, González devoted himself entirely to sculpture. Reflecting on iron's association with weaponry, he imagined it being used in a new way by artists: ‘The door is opened wide to this material to be at last forged and hammered by the peaceful hands of artists.’

Between 1928 and 1932, González collaborated closely with Picasso, sharing his technical expertise while developing his own independent sculptural language. He exhibited La Montserrat at the 1937 Paris International Exhibition, with the monumental figure embodying the horrors and pain of war. Other celebrated works include Woman Combing Her Hair (1936) and Monsieur Cactus (1939), which demonstrate the artist's ability to suggest the human figure through welded lines and planes.

González died in Arcueil in 1942. His work helped establish iron as a major medium of modern sculpture, demonstrating its expressive potential through his radical understanding of space, structure and material.