circa 1945
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.
Untitled 4, Modern Abstract Monotype by Harry Beroia
By Harry Bertoia
Located in Long Island City, NY
Artist: Harry Bertoia Title: Untitled 4 Year: circa 1945 Medium: Monoprint on Rice Paper Paper Size: 9 x 11 inches Frame: 14.5 x 17.5 inches
Monoprint
untitled 1, Framed Abstract Monoprint by Harry Bertoia
By Harry Bertoia
Located in Long Island City, NY
Artist: Harry Bertoia Title: Untitled 1 Year: circa 1945 Medium: Monoprint on Rice Paper Paper Size: 9 x 11 inches Frame: 14.5 x 17.5 inches
Monoprint
Untitled 2, Abstract Geometric Framed Monoprint by Harry Bertoia
By Harry Bertoia
Located in Long Island City, NY
Artist: Harry Bertoia Title: Untitled 2 Year: circa 1945 Medium: Monoprint on Rice Paper Paper Size: 9 x 11 inches Frame: 14.5 x 17.5 inches
Monoprint
Landscape, Abstract Expressionist Monoprint by Manuel Rodriguez Jr.
Located in Long Island City, NY
Manuel Rodriguez Jr., Filipino (1942 - ) - Landscape, Medium: Monoprint and Mixed Media on BFK Rives, signed, numbered and titled in pencil, Editio...
Mixed Media, Monoprint
Abstract Expressionist Etching by Harry Hoehn, c1963
By Harry Hoehn
Located in Long Island City, NY
Artist: Harry Hoehn, American (1917 - 1974) Title: Untitled Year: circa 1963 Medium: Aquatint Etching, Signed and numbered in pencil Edition: 18/50 Image Size: 17.5 x 23 inches ...
Aquatint, Etching
Tiva Landscape, Abstract Expressionist Lithograph by Lamar Briggs
By Lamar Briggs
Located in Long Island City, NY
Artist: Lamar Briggs, American (1935 - ) Title: Tiva Landscape Year: circa 1980 Medium: Lithograph, signed and numbered in pencil Edition: AP 40 Size: 21 x 29 inches
Lithograph
Harry Bertoia Monoprint
By Harry Bertoia
Located in New York, NY
Large mono-print by Harry Bertoia, initialed and numbered 1857 on rice paper set mounted in oiled walnut frame. From the Bertoia Family collection. A beautiful rendering of his sculp...
Paper
Very Rare Harry Bertoia Monoprint on Rice Paper
By Harry Bertoia
Located in Munich, DE
Purchased at la modern around 20 years ago. It´s the size of the work - not the frame.
Paper
Vertial Sculpture
By Harry Bertoia
Located in Lambertville, NJ
Jim’s of Lambertville is proud to offer this artwork by: Harry Bertoia (1915 – 1978) Artist, sound art sculptor, and furniture designer, Harry Bertoia, was born in Italy in 1915 be...
Paper, Monoprint
Very Rare Harry Bertoia Monoprint on Rice Paper
By Harry Bertoia
Located in Munich, DE
Purchased at la modern around 20 years ago. Size is of the visible picture inside passe-partout.
Paint
Three Sound Sculpture
By Harry Bertoia
Located in Lambertville, NJ
Jim’s of Lambertville is proud to offer this artwork by: Harry Bertoia (1915 – 1978) Artist, sound art sculptor, and furniture designer, Harry Bertoia, was born in Italy in 1915 before immigrating to America in 1930. In 1936, he attended the Detroit Society of Arts and Crafts before moving to study at Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield, Michigan, where he would later teach and establish a metalworking department. During this early artistic period, he experimented with jewelry forms, exploring creative concepts that would later emerge in his sculptures. In 1943, he relocated to Venice, California, along with esteemed artist-designer couple Charles and Ray Eames, to participate in war efforts until 1946. During his first year in California, he began attending a welding class at Santa Monica City College. In 1947, he moved to La Jolla to work in the publications department of Point Loma Naval Electronics Laboratory creating training manuals for equipment operators. During this time, he continued making jewelry and monoprints and began his first experiments with metal sculpture. In 1949, he moved to Barto, Pennsylvania to work alongside Hans and Florence Knoll at Knoll Associates, a design company and furniture manufacturer. From then on, he became a prolific architectural sculptor. While at Knoll Associates, he created the famous wire Bertoia Collection. Among the designs for this collection was his Diamond Chair, which quickly became an iconic and commercially successful model. His first sculpture exhibition was in 1951 at the Knoll Showroom in New York. Besides his work in jewelry making and furniture design, during the 1960s, Bertoia began to devote himself to the production of sound sculptures...
Monoprint
Harry Bertoia monotype
By Harry Bertoia
Located in New York, NY
Monotype by Harry Bertoia, initialed and numbered 1860 on rice paper set mounted in oiled walnut frame. From the Bertoia Family collection. A beautiful rendering of his sculptures id...
Paper
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.
You know the designs, now get the stories about how they came to be.
