Attributed to Nancy Spero (1926-2009) American, Brutalist Metal Sculpture on Marble Base. Appears as twisted layers of metal compressed together with several smooth surfaces, suggesting that outward calm and serene appearances hide a wealth of structure and turmoil beneath. Hollow, disconnected from base. Label on side at the bottom just above the marble base reading "Spero." Although not her usual format, it was originally acquired in Chicago, suggesting it may be an early work of hers while still a student at the School of the Art Institute there. 

Size: 23 x 12 x 8 in. 

Nancy Spero (1926-2009) was an influential American visual artist and activist celebrated for her raw, political, and feminist paintings and hand-pulled art prints. Born in Cleveland, Ohio, she graduated from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1949, where she met her lifelong husband and frequent artistic collaborator, Leon Golub. Spero spent years studying and exhibiting in Europe before settling in New York City, where the turbulence of the Vietnam War and the Civil Rights Movement prompted her radical War Series. As an ardent feminist, she co-founded A.I.R. Gallery, the first women’s cooperative gallery in SoHo, where she debuted her signature multi-foot paper scroll paintings that combined text, imagery, and collage. Her mature work created a vast, text-free pictographic lexicon of the female form spanning from prehistory to the contemporary world, to explicitly confront themes of political violence, sexism, and historical erasure, while later in her fifty-year career her art transformed into vibrant wall installations across international cities, securing her legacy as a preeminent figure of écriture féminine in visual art long after her death.

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