Val Bertoia Bronze Hydrangea Sculpture, 2015
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Val Bertoia Bronze Hydrangea Sculpture, 2015
About the Item
- Creator:Val Bertoia (Artist),Harry Bertoia (Artist)
- Dimensions:Height: 22 in (55.88 cm)Diameter: 13.5 in (34.29 cm)
- Style:Mid-Century Modern (In the Style Of)
- Materials and Techniques:
- Place of Origin:
- Period:
- Date of Manufacture:2015
- Production Type:New & Custom(One of a Kind)
- Estimated Production Time:Available Now
- Condition:Bertoia Studio's crate included with purchase for transporting sculpture.
- Seller Location:New York, NY
- Reference Number:Seller: Highland Park Item #VB0011stDibs: 1501238633618
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.
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Val Bertoia
Val Bertoia was born in Santa Monica, California, in 1949. In the 1950s, his family moved from California to Pennsylvania, where he has lived and worked ever since.
In the 1960s, Bertoia studied mechanical engineering at Indiana Institute of Technology in Ft. Wayne, Indiana. In 1969, he was awarded “Speaker of the Year” at Indiana Tech. In 1971, he was released from Ft. Dix, New Jersey, from the US Army to return back to Pennsylvania.
Bertoia started working at a farm near his home, and soon afterward, his father, Harry Bertoia, asked him to work at Bertoia Studio with him. He worked with his father from 1972–78. The “sound sculpture” environment, which Harry continued to focus on for 10 years beginning in 1968, is trademarked “Sonambient.” Harry and Val installed large-scale commissioned metal sculptures, and Harry was amazed with his son’s level of precision and engineering abilities and often asked his advice.
In the late 1970s, Harry and Val made Bertoia sound sculptures for distribution worldwide. During those six years, Val worked on his own projects, which included wind-electric systems as derivatives of kinetic sculpture models. Harry was an intuitive engineer, and Val's wind systems, the heights of which reached over 90 feet, were refined by Harry and became well-balanced with a U.S. patent.
In 1978, continuing where Harry left off — and with the encouragement of his mother, Brigitta Bertoia — Val proceeded with the sculpture business of his father's legacy. Val Bertoia sculptures made after November 1978, when Harry died, are numbered, starting with “B-01.”
Find authentic Val Bertoia sculptures and decorative objects on 1stDibs.
- Val Bertoia Corner Sound Sculpture, 2008By Harry Bertoia, Val BertoiaLocated in New York, NYContemporary artist Val Bertoia's Corner Sound Sculpture made in 2008 is part of the Bertoia Sonambient series. It's made of 11 copper tops silvered to monel rods then silvered to a ...Category
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- Val Bertoia Mushroom SculptureBy Val BertoiaLocated in Dallas, TXMelted bronze shot into panel as mushroom head on heat pressed copper tube stem on bronze shot melted base. Sold with COA.Category
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- Val Bertoia ""Sounds Fine from 6 in Line" B-2702 SculptureBy Val BertoiaLocated in West Palm Beach, FLLarge Bertoia Studios B-2702 6 Rod "Sounds Fine From 6 In Line" sculpture with certificate of authenticity signed by Val, the artist and son of the original designer, Harry Bertoia. ...Category
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- Val Bertoia Sound Spray PrototypeBy Val BertoiaLocated in Dallas, TXAbout 100 beryllium copper rods silvered to brass plate in a twisted expanding column for sound. Have CoA. This sculpture produces sound.Category
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- Val Bertoia Sonambient Sounding Sculpture Titled "Sounds like a Tall Tower"By Val BertoiaLocated in Dallas, TXBertoia Studio Sonambient Sculpture 49 silicon-bronze rods adhered with silver to a solid brass base. Created in 2014 by Val Bertoia in the Harry Bertoia Studio. Signed certifica...Category
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