Monumental Sonambient by Harry Bertoia
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Monumental Sonambient by Harry Bertoia
About the Item
- Creator:Harry Bertoia (Artist)
- Dimensions:Height: 108.25 in (274.96 cm)Width: 107 in (271.78 cm)Depth: 16 in (40.64 cm)
- Place of Origin:
- Period:
- Date of Manufacture:1974
- Condition:
- Seller Location:New York, NY
- Reference Number:1stDibs: LU8048879779
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 modernism. Among furniture aficionados he is known for 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, Bertoia 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. There, 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 Cranbrook, 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.
- Harry Bertoia, Monumental Sonambient SculptureBy Harry BertoiaLocated in New York, NYHarry Bertoia, Monumental Sonambient Sculpture, USA, circa 1970's. Inconel on brass plate, comprised of 49 rods in a 7 x 7 layout with cattails, unmarked. Measures H: 81, W: 16, D: 1...Category
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- Sonambient Rods Sculpture by Harry BertoiaBy Harry BertoiaLocated in New York, NYA sonambient rods sculpture by Harry Bertoia (1915-1978). A desirable size for display in the home and a typically wonderful sound quality.Category
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Price Upon Request - Harry Bertoia Two Column Sonambient SculptureBy Harry BertoiaLocated in New York, NYAn atypical form for Beartoia's (1915-1978) sonambients given it's split in the centre of the rods. A desirable size for display in the home and a typically wonderful sound quality.Category
Vintage 1960s American Industrial Abstract Sculptures
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- Harry Bertoia Bush SculptureBy Harry BertoiaLocated in New York, NY"Untitled" (Bush) Sculpture by Harry Bertoia, circa 1970's made of welded bronze. Harry Bertoia, was an Italian-born American artist, sound art sculptor, an...Category
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$190,575 - Wire Sculpture on Pedstal by Harry BertoiaBy Harry BertoiaLocated in New York, NYWire sculpture on pedestal by Harry Bertoia (1915-1978), circa 1950's. Overall dimensions including pedstal: 79.5"H x 16.25"W x 16.5"D Wire sculpture dimensions: Approx. 38"H x 17"...Category
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- Brutalist Welded Nails Sculpture by Harry BertoiaBy Harry BertoiaLocated in New York, NYAbstract Brutalist Nails Sculpture by Harry Bertoia, circa 1950s.Category
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- Sonambient Sculpture by Harry BertoiaBy Harry BertoiaLocated in Georges Mills, NHRare Harry Bertoia sonambient sculpture. Pair of off-axis bronze rod arrays silver soldered onto a solid bronze base, circa 1967. Sold with a certificate of authenticity by the Hary ...Category
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- Midcentury Harry Bertoia Sonambient SculptureBy Harry BertoiaLocated in BROOKLYN, NYMidcentury Harry Bertoia Sonambient sculpture featuring seven black monel "cat-tail" tops silvered to beryllium. Copper rods silvered to brass base. In fin...Category
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- Harry Bertoia Gold Plated Bronze Diagonal Double Tonal Sonambient SculptureBy Harry BertoiaLocated in St. Louis, MOSculptor and Artist Harry Bertoia gold plated bronze Sonambient sculpture, diagonal double tonal, circa 1965. Two groupings of thin rods at different angles on poured slab of bronze. Purchased from estate of the original owner. Sold with a “Certificate of Authenticity” from the Harry Bertoia foundation, along with a copy of the Knoll letter...Category
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- Sonambient Cattails Sound Sculpture in the Manner of Harry BertoiaBy Harry BertoiaLocated in San Pedro Garza Garcia, Nuevo LeonVintage Sonambient cattails sound sculpture in the manner of Harry Bertoia circa 1970. It is in great vintage condition with patina throughout, four rows of four copper colored sound...Category
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- Harry Bertoia Style Monumental Steel Fan SculptureBy Harry BertoiaLocated in New York, NYHarry Bertoia style monumental steel spray sculpture. Steel rods splayed in fan shape mounted on a wooden square base.Category
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- Monumental Harry Bertoia Silver Necklace, Bertoia Catalogue Raisonne D.JE.49By Harry BertoiaLocated in Bloomfield Hills, MIWEARABLE ART AN IMPORTANT DESIGN FOR A NECKLACE The necklace is unique and extraordinary. Because of its specific design elements it lays beautifully and comfortably on any body structure. This piece comes from a private collection. Provenance will accompany the piece. It has been authenticated by Val Bertoia and is listed in the Harry Bertoia Foundation Catalogue Raisonne # D.JE.49 having been authenticated as a Harry Bertoia piece. REPLY FROM CHRISTIE'S: "Dear Charles, thank you for contacting Christie's. I am absolutely stunned to see the necklace by Harry Bertoia you have submitted for feedback from us, and I would love to speak with you about the work at your earliest convenience. I am a great fan and a known expert in the work of Harry Bertoia, and I have handled over 600 of his sculptures, jewelry and art over the last 22 years. I have never seen a better piece of his jewelry, and it stands as one of the greatest objects in any category that he made. Michael Jefferson Senior Vice President International Senior Specialist Design" The following is from Beverly H. Twitchell, PhD, author of Bertoia: The Metalworker, London: Phaidon, 2019. She provides a very informative critique of Bertoia and his jewelry. Wearable Art an Important Design for a Necklace “Before Harry Bertoia enrolled at the Cranbrook Academy of Art in 1937 he had already mastered traditional jewelers’ techniques, but his engagement with Modernism led him to invent and use more direct methods. Instead of precious metals and gems, Bertoia made jewelry that appealed through its design, craftsmanship and the nature of its materials. That approach would make Bertoia a direct predecessor of the American Studio Crafts movement. So complex and cumulative are human perception and memory that we often do not know from where our own ideas come and without firm evidence, it is impossible to think we can establish the origins of an artist’s ideas. While his jewelry is entirely modern, chokers with multiple small pendants had come from ancient Mediterranean cultures: Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece and Italy, even from Europe and America at the turn of the last century. Did Bertoia see works in books, journals or at the Detroit Institute of Arts that resonated with him or did he invent this on his own, as he would so many other forms? Bertoia found inspiration in nature from an early age on a small farm in Italy and later in Cranbrook’s woods, on the beaches of southern California and in the fields near his home in eastern Pennsylvania where he lived after 1950. The fluidity and motion of the his jewelry characterize much of his art. In that spirit, too, he made jewelry that suited human anatomy and was animated by its wearer’s movement. Bertoia had the instincts of an engineer, as the intricacy of the present lot’s clasp and overall construction of the jewelry demonstrates. Large jewelry by Bertoia is very rare. A delight to the eye, and like all of Bertoia’s work it is timeless. Bertoia had the instincts of an engineer, as the intricacy of the present lot's clasp and the overall construction of this piece demonstrate. Closed, the necklace sits on a table in a surprisingly conical shape, but it is so flexible that it conforms to its wearer from her neck nearly to her shoulders. Each handmade section is riveted to its neighbors, allowing it to adjust to the body while the pendants curve in many directions: one fits the left clavicle so precisely that Bertoia likely tried it on Brigitta Valentiner, who became his wife in 1943. Other pendants face toward or away from each other, bending up or down. Each element has been hammered into multiple curves and worked in Bertoia’s hands. Large jewelry by Bertoia is very rare. A delight to the eye, this necklace no doubt caused a sensation in its day as it might at the 2022 Met Ball in ours, for like all of Harry Bertoia’s work, it is timeless.” Harry Bertoia (1915 – 1978) was an Italian-born American artist, jewelry creator and modern furniture designer. He was born in San Lorenzo d...Category
Vintage 1940s American Abstract Sculptures
MaterialsSterling Silver