In memory of Roberta Gonzalez
About the “Roberta Gonzalez” exhibition visible at the Center Pompidou until March 9, 2025 on the occasion of a donation from its beneficiaries.
Before being known as a Franco-Spanish painter and sculptor, active on the Parisian and international scene from the 1930s thanks to her works of modern and abstract art, Roberta González (1909-1976) was for a long time especially presented as the daughter of the famous sculptor Julio González (1876-1942), who had always encouraged his daughter's artistic talents, approved by Pablo Picasso, his collaborator and friend; or as the wife of Hans Hartung (1904-1989), French painter and printmaker of German origin, well known for his role in the development of abstract art in the 20th century. Despite their ups and downs, the couple shared a life dedicated to art from 1939 to 1956, before separating definitively, Hans having finally reconnected with his previous wife, the artist Anna-Eva Bergman, with whom he had, however, consoled himself for the divorce in Roberta's arms by coming to work in his father's workshop... In short. Their relationship therefore necessarily had a mutual influence on their respective works, I agree. The fact remains that, even if she frequented Pierre Soulages or Yves Klein with her husband, Roberta González always knew how to demonstrate singularity. It is enough to see this gouache entitled Two Women and Children, painted when she was only 18 years old, to understand the full extent of a talent that she owes only to her.
Even if the history of art, until very recently, initially only remembered him, Hans Hartung and she are therefore both important figures of modern art in equal measure. Of course, they remained friends after their divorce. Nevertheless, he will be stunned like everyone else when he learns in July 1976 that after having disappeared for fourteen days, Roberta was found dead in a wheat field in Seine-et-Marne. Disoriented, subject to attacks of amnesia since she was the victim of a car accident in 1951 while accompanying her husband to the hospital to change his hip prosthesis, the artist, only 67 years old, would be buried between the ears of corn, would have wandered then would have been lost under a blazing sun. Before collapsing.
It must be believed that no friend looked for her, since as the days passed, her body would have dried up... I don't know what you think, but I find that there are ultimately even more dead people upsetting than others... Especially since a few months before, Roberta Gonzalez had painted a canvas in flamboyant colors evoking Munch's The Scream. And that in 1969, when she felt her strength and her memory definitely wavering, she created an Indian ink entitled They searched for her for a long time and then found her in the Moon...
After her separation from this illustrious husband ultimately overshadowing her, Roberta Gonzalez overcame her pain by masterfully evolving her art. Even giving him wings. Without losing any of the strength of their figures, his works of art for sale then took flight towards a formidable synthesis between figuration and lyrical abstraction. The artist, suffering from terrifying memory lapses since his concussion in 1951, had continued to paint female characters, but with eyes so expressive that their anguish is palpable. While introducing the symbolism of the bird into her paintings, her alter ego, she who was so close to nature and sensitive to the stars. “Aware of a duality in the world, she is passionate about the synergy of contrasts, and makes it the common thread of her mature work,” observes Amanda Herold-Marme, doctor in art history.
For the first time, the Center Pompidou is honoring Roberta González and that’s good. Since April 2, 2024 and until March 9, 2025, a set of paintings, drawings, illustrated books, art objects and archival pieces is presented on the occasion of a donation from the artist's beneficiaries, Philippe Grimminger, his nephew, and his wife Isabelle. Let them be thanked. This set enriches the works acquired by the museum during the artist's lifetime, including the superb Melancholic Nude.
Of great stylistic and technical variety, Roberta González's works of art mainly focus on the female figure, declined in several identities and forms. Whether naturalistic or avant-garde, painted or drawn, anguished, melancholic or stoic, his peasant women, maternity wards and portraits all bear a striking gaze, tinged with nostalgia, and somewhat suspicious, but determined, which scrutinizes, which questions, who analyzes, in the manner of the artist herself, who walks towards her personal artistic path in a turned upside down world. The works presented at the Center Pompidou, mainly dating from the period 1935-1954, open a window on a pivotal era in the artist's life and work. His women in twisted postures, whose distress is accentuated by their shattered volumes and their distorted shapes, are his response to the war which first struck Spain, the country of origin of the González family, before becoming a conflict worldwide which will reach Roberta and her family in France more directly.
After the war, Roberta González searched for her place on the Parisian scene where everything had changed. To move forward, she gradually abandons the shadow of war to assert herself in the light of her purely personal style based on duality and contrasts — shadow/light, figuration/abstraction, static/movement, darkness/ color, nostalgia/joy — like the artist herself, both French and Spanish, creator and promoter of her father's work, mischievous and playful, but also highly sensitive.
What currently allows the Center Pompidou to enter in an even more moving way into the life and work of the artist are of course the documents from the artist's personal archives: photographs, childhood drawings and an extract from his unpublished personal diary. So there, I am in heaven, because I love these enrichments in monographic exhibitions. In fact, I never tire of this “human” feeling of getting to know a person, as well as an artist. To better represent the creative community that Roberta González was part of when creating the exhibited works, they are also presented in dialogue with a handful of works by Julio González and Hans Hartung.
The exceptional longevity of the exhibition, which will ultimately last a year, will give rise to a rotation of works, allowing the public to optimize their discovery. In other words, I will be able to go back several times, and I hope you will too!
Article written by Valibri in Roulotte
Illustration: Roberta González, Untitled, Arcueil, June 1, 1040, Ink and watercolor on paper, 29 x 19.6 cm, gift from the Gonzalez Estate, 2023 (® DR)