Italian artist Marisa Merz worked with a wide and idiosyncratic array of materials, including woven copper wire, monofilament, aluminum sheeting, and domestic objects, which she used in abundance to create sculptures, often in her home in Turin. Versatile and unbound by convention, Merz created both small- and large-scale works related to her inner life, from delicate sculpted clay heads to massive painted installations that encompass entire walls. She was the only female protagonist of the Arte Povera movement in postwar Italy, and her sensibility was entirely singular, as evident in the work Untitled, 1990/2003, in Glenstone’s collection, comprised of nine unfired clay portrait heads displayed across a paraffin wax platform.

–Samantha Owens, from the Glenstone Field Guide