HARRY BERTOIA SCULPTOR
June Kompass Nelson
June Kompass Nelson: HARRY BERTOIA SCULPTOR. Detroit: Wayne State University, 1970. First edition. Small square quarto. Cream cloth titled in black. Printed dust jacket. 138 pp. 85 black and white plates. Jacket with minor edge chipping and one closed tear to front panel and a tiny stray pen mark. A fine copy in a good or better dust jacket. Uncommon.
9.25 x 9.75 hardcover book with 138 pages with 85 black and white plates of Bertoia’s varied work in jewelry, stabiles, wire constructions, Knoll chair designs, braised metal screens, spill cast bronze, rod and tube fountains, stainless steel sprays/dandelions, bushes and sounding sculptures. Also includes a timeline and bibliography.
The finest book to date on the prolific sculptor/designer Harry Bertoia. Nelson thoroughly covers the progression of his work from jewelry to the sounding sculptures for which he is best known, and illustrates his work with photographs of both public and private pieces. June Kompass Nelson also wrote Harry Bertoia Printmaker, 1988.
Italian artist and furniture designer, Harry Bertoia (1916-1978), was thirty-seven years old when he designed the patented Diamond chair for Knoll in 1952. An unusually beautiful piece of furniture, it was strong yet delicate in appearance, and an immediate commercial success in spite of being made almost entirely by hand. With the Diamond chair, Bertoia created an icon of modern design and introduced a new material, industrial wire mesh to the world of furniture design.
Bertoia’s career began in the 1930’s as a student at the Cranbrook Academy of Art where he re-established the metal-working studio and, as head of that department, taught from 1939 until 1943 when it was closed due to wartime restrictions on materials. During the war, Bertoia moved to Venice, California, and worked with Charles and Ray Eames at the Evans Products Company, developing new techniques for molding plywood.
1946 was a pivotal year for Bertoia. He became an American citizen, moved to Bally, Pennsylvania, near the Knoll factory and established his own design and sculpting studio where he produced numerous successful designs for Knoll. As a sculptor, Bertoia created abstract freestanding metal works, some of which resonated with sound when touched or had moving elements that chimed in the wind. Bertoia received awards from the American Institute of Architects in 1973 and the American Academy of Letters in 1975. All of his work bears the hallmarks of a highly skilled and imaginative sculptor, as well as an inventive designer, deeply engaged with the relationship between form and space.