Harry BertoiaVertial Sculpture
About the Item
- Creator:Harry Bertoia (1915 - 1978, American, Italian)
- Dimensions:Height: 51 in (129.54 cm)Width: 24 in (60.96 cm)Depth: 2 in (5.08 cm)
- More Editions & Sizes:Framed Size 49" x 21.75"Price: $7,450
- Medium:
- Movement & Style:
- Period:
- Condition:
- Gallery Location:Lambertville, NJ
- Reference Number:
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.
- ShippingRetrieving quote...Ships From: Lambertville, NJ
- Return PolicyThis item cannot be returned.
- Three Sound SculptureBy Harry BertoiaLocated in Lambertville, NJJim’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...Category
20th Century Abstract Abstract Prints
MaterialsMonoprint
- "Study for Wall Construction"By Burgoyne DillerLocated in Lambertville, NJSigned Lower Right Burgoyne Diller (1906-1965) Recognized as the first American painter to embrace the tenets of Neo-Plasticism, Burgoyne Diller made an important contribution to ...Category
1950s Abstract Mixed Media
MaterialsPaper, Crayon, Graphite
- Untitled (1950)By Burgoyne DillerLocated in Lambertville, NJSigned Lower Right Burgoyne Diller (1906-1965) Recognized as the first American painter to embrace the tenets of Neo-Plasticism, Burgoyne Diller made an important contribution to ...Category
1950s Abstract Mixed Media
MaterialsPaper, Crayon, Graphite
- Untitled (1962)By Burgoyne DillerLocated in Lambertville, NJSigned Lower Right Burgoyne Diller (1906-1965) Recognized as the first American painter to embrace the tenets of Neo-Plasticism, Burgoyne Diller made an important contribution to ...Category
1960s Abstract Mixed Media
MaterialsPaper, Crayon, Graphite
- "Drawing for Sculpture 1"By Charles Robert SearlesLocated in Lambertville, NJJim’s of Lambertville is proud to offer this artwork. Signed lower right and dated '81. Charles Searles (1937-2004) He was born in Philadelphia, PA and received his fine art education at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art (PAFA) from 1969-72. He also attended the University of Pennsylvania for liberal arts studies, where he worked in the labs beside the scientists and engineers creating technical illustrations for text books. His early paintings embraced the tumultuous 60's and also reflected his own family life and surroundings. Before graduating the PAFA, Searles received the Cresson Memorial Traveling Scholarship, and the following year, the Ware Memorial Traveling Scholarship. He was the first student to use these funds to travel to Africa. His travels in Africa marked his life and work forever -- the life, the rhythms, the patterns, and the energy. Searles returned to Philadelphia and began teaching at the Ile Ife Cultural Center. It was then that he began his "Dancer" Series. This series marked a change in his life, celebrating his new sense of renewal and the African experience. He was awarded his first mural commission at the William G. Green Federal Building. This work, entitled "Celebration" is still on view today. At that time, he was also hired as a drawing teacher at the (then) Philadelphia College of Art, where he remained a professor for over twenty years. In 1978, Searles moved to New York City. He found a large, raw space -- an old sewing factory -- on Broadway and Bleeker where he would remain for the rest of his life. He continued to commute to Philadelphia teaching part time. He met Kathleen Spicer, an art student, in 1983. They married in 1985. Together, they shared a wonderful, open, artistic, social, and creative experience. Searles gradually moved away from painting and into sculpture. His sculptures maintained the vibrant color and patterns from his paintings, but seemed to dance in three dimensions. These new works embodied a live sense of rhythm and energy -- trademarks that he maintained throughout his career, whether in wood, bronze, or aluminum. In his lifetime, Charles Searles participated in over 60 group shows, and 25 solo exhibitions. He was represented by the Sande Webster Gallery in Philadelphia for over 20 years. His paintings and sculptures can be found in innumerable public and private collections. Public commissions include the Delaware River Port Authority, the NYC Mass Transit Authority, the First District Plaza in Philadelphia, and the Amtrak station in Newark, NJ. He was the recipient of many awards, including ones from the Pollock-Krasner Foundation, the Adolph and Esther Gottleib Foundation, the Creative Arts Project Fellowship, and the National Endowment for the Arts. His wife of 23 years, Kathleen Spicer adds: "Charles was his work, and his work was him. Inseparable. Our lives were all about art. We lived each day as if it was a gift. To me, he was enchanted. His vision was clear -- he could envision something and make it come to life as easy as breathing. Genius. Charles made the world a better place. Charles speaks loud and clear." Bio courtesy of Kathleen Spicer (Searles) Selected Periodical Citations: Newhall, Edith, "Dual Celebration of Self-expression", Philadelphia Enquirer, May 2013 Fabbri, Anne, "A Farewell to Charles Searles", Art Matters, January 2005 Cornell University Review, August 2000 O'Neill, Denise I., "Black Experience Puts Soul Into the Heart of Christmas", Chicago Sun-Times, December 1996 Gleuck, Grace, Review, The New York Times, December 1996 McBride, Octavia, "An Artist Acclaimed", Philadelphia Tribune, April 1993 Fox, Catherine, "National Black Arts Festival Program Guide", The Atlanta Journal, July 1990 Wilson, William, "Black Artists in Tune with Ancestors", Los Angeles Times, January 1990 Jamusch, Ann, "Special Show-Legacy of Black Art", Dallas Times Herald, January 1990 Binkley, Barbara, "Colors, Bright and Bold", The Daily News, April 1986 Grafly, Dorothy, "Charles Searles at Neumans", ART in Focus, Summer 1978 Crittendon, Denise, "Back Home from Nigeria", The Michigan Chronicle, December 1977 Garrett, Bob, Art Section Review. Boston Sunday Herald, November 1975 Patry, Louise, "A Jubilee of Afro-American Art in Boston", New England Journal, December 1975 Wright, Charles, "Paint Art Racist", The Village Voice, April 1971 Nelson, Nells, "Black Artists Rise Above the Tempest", Philadelphia Daily News, April 1971 Canaday, John, "Black Artist on View in Two Exhibitions", The New York Times, February 1970 Collections: - Philadelphia Museum of Art - The Woodmere Art Museum - Smithsonian Institute of American Art - Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts - LaSalle University Art Museum - Howard University Gallery of Art - Dallas Museum of Art - Delaware Valley Arts Alliance - Montclair Museum of Art - Afro-American Historical & Cultural Museum - Museum of Afro-American History - 35 + corporate collections - National & international private collections 75+ Group Exhibitions, Including: - Woodmere Art Museum - Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts - Whitney Museum of American Art - Museum of American Art - Boston Museum of Fine Arts - Brooklyn Museum - Art Alliance - National Afro-American Museum - Liberty Museum - National Blacks Fine Arts Show - Institute of Contemporary Art - Ackland Arts Museum - Arnot Art Museum 30+ Solo Exhibitions, Including: - Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia PA - The State Museum of Pennsylvania, Harrisburg, PA - LaSalle University, Philadelphia, PA - Temple University, Philadelphia, PA - Montclair Art Museum, Montclair, NJ - Noyes Museum, Oceanville, NJ - Delaware Valley Arts Alliance, Narrowsburg, NY - North Carolina State University - Winston Salem State University, Winston Salem, NC - G.R. N’Namdi Gallery, New York, NY - Sande Webster Gallery, Philadelphia, PA - June Kelly Gallery, New York, NY - Noel Gallery, Charlotte, NC - Malcolm Brown...Category
1980s Abstract Abstract Paintings
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1960s Abstract Abstract Drawings and Watercolors
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- Glendale VIIIBy Peter Alexander, 1939Located in Irvine, CAThis abstract monoprint by American artist Peter Alexander (1939-2022) measures 30" x 33". It was completed in 1989 and is signed, titled, dated on the lower right corner. This print...Category
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