Rooster

This work was acquired by the Metropolitan Museum during Gargallo's exhibition at the Brummer Gallery in New York, in February-March-April 1934, an exhibition that achieved extraordinary success and marks the beginning of the sculptor's definitive international consecration, although The process suffered a prolonged inflection due to his premature death at the end of the same year.

Fully recognized and consecrated in Europe, Gargallo's fourth individual in New York (since there was a second, from December 1936 to January 1937, at the Galerie René Gimpel, and a third - composed of only two sculptures - from December 1951 to January 1952, at the Passedoit Gallery) took place in 1987, producing a joyous reunion with critics and the definitive assumption of the exceptional value of his work in the American artistic and cultural spheres.

In addition to the Metropolitan Rooster, and since he kept the corresponding templates, the sculptor began to make the iron pieces with which he planned to carry out a second version of the work, a project perhaps interrupted by the end of his life.

The theme of the rooster is repeated in another work by Gargallo, the Veleta, 1930 - for which he sketched a preparatory drawing -, from the Museu Cau Ferrat, in Sitges, which received it as a donation from Magali Tartanson, the author's widow.