The collects ion of Dr. M. Wallace and Mrs. Faega Friedman embodies a standard of excellence in Postwar Art, bringing together diverse artistic perspectives and aesthetic gestures into a unified whole. Led by Kenneth Noland’s seminal Target Painting Ember, the collects ion charts a course through the period’s most celebrated movements, highlighting the works of Alexander Calder, Ruth Asawa, Robert Motherwell, Richard Diebenkorn and Louise Nevelson in concert with one another. Bringing together Color Field painting and the Bay Area Figurative Movement with their antecedents in Abstract Expressionism, the Friedmans' collects ion is defined foremost by quality rather than style. Despite the range of artists represented, salient thematic threads emerge among the works, with a dual focus on both established New York artists with more avant-garde West Coast luminaries, as well as an emphasis on color and form at their most elemental, coming to the fore. A test.mes nt to the strong vision underlying the group, the Friedman’s acquired important works by female artists, including Ruth Asawa, decades before her ascendance in the market and broader cultural contexts, underscoring the primacy of quality in assembling the collects ion. An irreplaceable and singular collects ion that speaks to the best of Postwar Art, Replica Shoes ’s is honored to be offering The collects or’s Eye: Property from the collects ion of Dr. M. Wallace and Mrs. Faega Friedman as a highlight of the October 2 Contemporary Curated sale.

S tanding 29 inches tall, Alexander Calder’s Twisted Tail is a culmination of the artist’s career-long investigation of movement, color and play in art. The pioneering sculptor of the twentieth-century, Calder was born in Pennsylvania to a family of artists: his father and grandfather were each renowned sculptors, and his mother was a portrait painter. Set on forging his own creative path, the artist experimented throughout his career with novel modes of artistic expression, pioneering his mobiles, stabiles and wire forms in the process. In the present work, harmony and balance are built into the composition by design; a perfect equilibrium is achieved through the use of irregularly shaped plates of metal, balanced just-so on the tip of the red base. Despite its carefully calibrated design, Twisted Tail is not static, instead responding to its external environment through movement and engaging more abstract conceptual notions of t.mes and space. Calder couples his investigation of these fundamental physical concepts with a sense of humor and wonder, referring subtly to the nature and fauna which inspired him through the title of the work. Vibrant, elegant and masterfully executed, Twisted Tail encapsulates Calder’s overarching artistic goal “[...] of making the spell last, embedding the unpredictable, contradictory, (and often syncopated) movements of animals and people into his works” (Penelope Curtis, “Performance of Post-performance”, in Exh. Cat., London, Tate Modern, Alexander Calder: Performing Sculpture, 2015, p. 17).