Pablo Gargallo

Pierre Courthion, Pablo Gargallo, L'Oeuvre Complet, Catalogue Raisonné par Pierrette Anguera-Gargallo, Paris, 1989, p. 121, illustration of another cast  p. 161
Rafael Ordoñez Fernández, Catálogo del Museo Pablo Gargallo, Zaragoza, Spain, illustration of another cast pp. 158-159
Gargallo, (exhibition catalogue),Sala Pares Barcelona, 1934, no. 32.
Gargallo Exposició d`Escultures, Reus, (exhibition catalogue) Centre de Lectura, Secció d`Art, 1934, no. 22 (another cast)
Exposició d`Homenatge a l`escultur Pablo Gargallo, (exhibition catalogue) Barcelona, Sala Pares., 1935, no. 3 (another cast)
Pablo Gargallo. Escultor. Exposición póstuma de sus obras, (exhibition catalogue) Madrid, Museo del Arte Moderno 1935, no. 3 (another cast)
Les maîtres de l`Art Indépendant, (exhibition catalogue) Paris, Petit Palais, 1937, no. 30 (another cast)
Gargallo, (exhibition catalogue) Paris, Arcades des Jardins du Petit Palais, 1947, no. 11 (another cast)
Pablo Gargallo, (exhibition catalogue) Paris, Musée Rodin, 1970, no. 88 (another cast)
Gargallo. 1881-1934, (exhibition catalogue) Madrid, Museo Español de Arte Contemporáneo, , 1971, no. 77 (another cast)
Gargallo 1881-1934, (exhibition catalogue) Barcelona, Palau de la Virreina, 1971-1972, no. 77 (another cast)
De Rodin à nos Jours, (exhibition catalogue) Calais, Musée de Calais,  1973 (another cast)
Gargallo, (exhibition catalogue) Madrid and Barcelona, Galeria Theo, 1975 (another cast)
Gargallo. Exposició del Centenario, (exhibition catalogue) Barcelona, Palau de la Virreina, 1981, no. 125 (another cast)
Pablo Gargallo (exhibition catalogue) Lisboa, Fondação Calauste Gulbenkian, 1981, no 111(another cast)
Gargallo 1881-1981. Exposición del Centenario, (exhibition catalogue) Madrid, Palacio de Cristal, , 1981, no. 188 (another cast)
Pablo Gargallo, (exhibition catalogue) Centro de Arte Palacio Almundi, 1989 (another cast)

 Born in Aragon, Pablo Gargallo grew up in Barcelona and emerged from the same artistic heritage as his celebrated countryman Picasso. Gargallo first travels to Paris in October 1903 and remained there for six months where he introduces Picasso to sculpture. For the rest of his life, Paris became an increasingly important source of inspiration.  After several extended visits there, Gargallo settled in Paris in 1921 where he met again with his compatriots Picasso and Juan Gris. Gargallo worked in several media as a sculptor. Although he never stoped working with stone and bronze, in 1907 he experiments with sheet metal sculpture, a medium he works for the rest of his life and is a key event in the history of the abolition of barriers and categories, a central phenomena of the evolution of modern art. Like Picasso, Gargallo did not systematically work in a specific direction, but performed them at the same time. The parallel with Gargallo’s work is evident when we look at such different sculptures as the famous Danseuse, a cubist inspired rendering of a standing dancer, or the present work, Femme au miroir, which evokes Antiquity, as the mirror is the traditional device meant to illustrate Aphrodite's attribute as the goddess of beauty.  During the thirties, the classical model was in fashion and Maillol asserts himself as its most famous representative. But Gargallo doesn’t only inscribe himself in that movement, his classical works obey to an inner and aesthetic necessity.  The masks and dancers in copper or iron are his answer to his will to create modern sculpture, while the bronze and marbles are the expression of his desire to sublimate modern beauty and magnify the eternal feminine ideal.

FIG 1. The reverse of the present work