Harry Bertoia Table-Top Sonambient Sculpture
About the Item
- Creator:Harry Bertoia (Designer)
- Dimensions:Height: 22 in (55.88 cm)
- Style:Mid-Century Modern (Of the Period)
- Materials and Techniques:
- Place of Origin:
- Period:
- Date of Manufacture:1960s
- Condition:Wear consistent with age and use.
- Seller Location:Pawtucket, RI
- Reference Number:1stDibs: LU9099934188
Harry Bertoia
Sculptor, furniture and jewelry designer, graphic artist and metalsmith, Harry Bertoia was one of the great cross-disciplinarians of 20th-century art and design and a central figure in American mid-century modernism. Among furniture aficionados, Bertoia is known for his chairs such as the wire-lattice Diamond chair (and its variants such as the tall-backed Bird chair) designed for Knoll Inc. and first released in 1952.
As an artist, he is revered for a style that was his alone. Bertoia’s metal sculptures are by turns expressive and austere, powerful and subtle, intimate in scale and monumental. All embody a tension between the intricacy and precision of Bertoia’s forms and the raw strength of his materials: steel, brass, bronze and copper.
Fortune seemed to guide Bertoia’s artistic development. Born in northeastern Italy, Bertoia immigrated to the United States at age 15, joining an older brother in Detroit. He studied drawing and metalworking in the gifted student program at Cass Technical High School. Recognition led to awards that culminated, in 1937, in a teaching scholarship to attend the Cranbrook Academy of Art in suburban Bloomfield Hills, one of the great crucibles of modernism in America.
At Cranbrook, Bertoia made friendships — with architect Eero Saarinen, designers Charles and Ray Eames and Florence Schust Knoll and others — that shaped the course of his life. He taught metalworking at the school, and when materials rationing during World War II limited the availability of metals, Bertoia focused on jewelry design. He also experimented with monotype printmaking, and 19 of his earliest efforts were bought by the Guggenheim Museum.
In 1943, he left Cranbrook to work in California with the Eameses, helping them develop their now-famed plywood furniture. (Bertoia received scant credit.) Late in that decade, Florence and Hans Knoll persuaded him to move east and join Knoll Inc. His chairs became and remain perennial bestsellers. Royalties allowed Bertoia to devote himself full-time to metal sculpture, a medium he began to explore in earnest in 1947.
By the early 1950s Bertoia was receiving commissions for large-scale works from architects — the first came via Saarinen — as he refined his aesthetic vocabulary into two distinct skeins. One comprises his “sounding sculptures” — gongs and “Sonambient” groupings of rods that strike together and chime when touched by hand or by the wind. The other genre encompasses Bertoia’s naturalistic works: abstract sculptures that suggest bushes, flower petals, leaves, dandelions or sprays of grass.
As you will see on these pages, Harry Bertoia was truly unique; his art and designs manifest a wholly singular combination of delicacy and strength.
Find vintage Harry Bertoia sculptures, armchairs, benches and other furniture and art on 1stDibs.
You May Also Like
Mid-20th Century American Mid-Century Modern Abstract Sculptures
Brass, Copper
Vintage 1960s American Mid-Century Modern Mobiles and Kinetic Sculptures
Bronze
Vintage 1970s American Mid-Century Modern Figurative Sculptures
Metal, Brass
Vintage 1970s Mid-Century Modern Mobiles and Kinetic Sculptures
Steel
Vintage 1970s American Brutalist Abstract Sculptures
Bronze
Mid-20th Century American Mid-Century Modern Abstract Sculptures
Brass, Steel
2010s North American Mid-Century Modern Abstract Sculptures
Brass, Copper
Vintage 1960s Abstract Sculptures
Steel
Mid-20th Century American Mid-Century Modern Abstract Sculptures
Metal
Late 20th Century American Abstract Sculptures
Bronze
More From This Seller
View AllVintage 1960s American Modern Ceramics
Ceramic
Vintage 1980s North American Mid-Century Modern Figurative Sculptures
Walnut
Early 20th Century German Modern Musical Instruments
Wood
Vintage 1950s American Mid-Century Modern Dining Room Tables
Lucite
Vintage 1960s German Mid-Century Modern Wall-mounted Sculptures
Porcelain
Vintage 1950s Danish Mid-Century Modern Coffee and Cocktail Tables
Brass
Still Thinking About These?
All Recently ViewedRead More
At Hosfelt Gallery, Bertoia Masterworks Complement Dynamic Contemporary Art
For nearly three decades, San Francisco–based Todd Hosfelt has curated against the grain — with a show on the legendary modernist Harry Bertoia the latest case in point.
The 21 Most Popular Mid-Century Modern Chairs
You know the designs, now get the stories about how they came to be.