Harry Bertoia

Marin R. Sullivan

ISBN 10: 3858818623 / ISBN 13: 9783858818621

Published by Scheidegger und Spiess AG, Verlag, CH, 2022

About this Item

Italian-born American artist Harry Bertoia (1915-1978) was one of the most prolific, innovative artists of the post-war period. Trained at the Cranbrook Academy of Art, where he met future colleagues and collaborators Charles and Ray Eames, Florence Knoll, and Eero Saarinen, he went on to make one-of-a kind jewellery, design iconic chairs, create thousands of unique sculptures including large-scale commissions for significant buildings, and advance the use of sound as sculptural material. His work speaks to the confluence of numerous fields of endeavour, but is united throughout by a sculptural approach to making and an experimental embrace of metal.Harry Bertoia: Sculpting Mid-Century Modern Life accompanies the first U.S. museum retrospective of the artist's career to examine the full scope of his broad, interdisciplinary practice, and feature important examples of his furniture, jewellery, monotypes, and diverse sculptural output. Lavishly illustrated, the book offers new scholarly essays as well as a catalogue of the artists numerous large-scale commissions. It questions how and why we distinguish between a chair, a necklace, a screen, and a freestanding sculpture and what Bertoia's sculptural things, when taken together, say about the fluidity of visual language across culture, both at mid-century and now.

Seller Inventory # LU-9783858818621

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Harry Bertoia
• Publisher: Scheidegger und Spiess AG, Verlag, CH
• Publication Date: 2022
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 3858818623
• ISBN 13: 9783858818621
• Binding: Hardback
• Condition: New
• Weight: 1486 grams

About this title

Synopsis

An extraordinary artist and designer: a fresh view of Harry Bertoia’s entire body of work.

Italian-born American Harry Bertoia (1915–78) was one of the most prolific and innovative artists and designers of the postwar period. Trained at the Cranbrook Academy of Art, where he met future colleagues and collaborators, such as Charles and Ray Eames, Florence Knoll, and Eero Saarinen, he went on to make one-of-a-kind jewelry, design iconic chairs, create thousands of unique sculptures including large-scale commissions for significant buildings, and advance the use of sound as sculptural material. His work speaks to the confluence of numerous fields of endeavor but is united throughout by a sculptural approach to making and an experimental embrace of metal.

Harry Bertoia: Sculpting Mid-Century Modern Life accompanies the first US museum retrospective of the artist’s career to examine the full scope of his broad, interdisciplinary practice and features important examples of his furniture, jewelry, monotypes, and diverse sculptural output. Lavishly illustrated, the book offers new scholarly essays as well as a catalog of the artist’s numerous large-scale commissions. It questions how and why we distinguish between a chair, a necklace, a screen, and a freestanding sculpture—and what Bertoia’s sculptural things, when taken together, say about the fluidity of visual language across culture, both at midcentury and now.

About the Authors

Jed Morse is an art historian and chief curator at the Nasher Sculpture Center in Dallas.

Marin R. Sullivan is an independent curator and art historian based in Chicago. She is the director of the Harry Bertoia Catalogue Raisonné and serves as Curator-at Large at Cheekwood Estates and Gardens in Nashville, TN.