Harry Bertoia
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Harry Bertoia (born March 10, 1915 in the district of San Lorenzo of Arzene , Kingdom of Italy ; † November 6, 1978 in Barto (Pennsylvania) , USA ) was an Italian-American artist, clay art sculptor and furniture designer.
Life
Bertoia visited his brother in Detroit , Michigan at the age of 15 and decided to stay there. At Detroit's Cass Technical High School , he took both arts and design classes and learned the craft of jewelry . In 1936 he attended the art school of the Detroit Society of Arts and Crafts (now the College for Creative Studies ).
In 1938 Bertoia received a scholarship to the Cranbrook Academy of Art where he met architects such as Walter Gropius and Edmund Bacon and the later designers Ray Eames and Charles Eames for the first time. In 1939 he started a workshop in which he taught, among other things, metalworking and jewelry making. During the Second World War , after his marriage to Brigitta Valentiner, he went to California to work for Charles and Ray Eames, who worked for a furniture factory, until the end of the war.
Bertoia moved to Pennsylvania in 1950 to set up his own studio. His work for Hans Knoll began , in which, among other things, five designs for seating were created. One of them became famous as the Diamond Chair . After a legal dispute with the furniture company Herman Miller and slight changes to the metal mesh of the seat, the Diamond Chair became a sales success and it is still manufactured by the Knoll company today. The license income from his armchairs allowed Bertoia to concentrate only on his sculptural work and his sound sculptures. With these sculptures he also produced several long-playing records with the title Sonambient .
Sound sculptures by the artist are owned by American museums such as the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden , Washington, DC , the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art , Kansas City, Missouri , the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis , Minnesota , and by individuals like Lord Palumbo , in his Frank Lloyd Wright- built Kentuck Knob , Pennsylvania.
Personal
Bertoia and Brigitta Valentiner had three children. Brigitta died in 2007 at the age of 87.
Exhibitions
- 1975/1976: Harry Bertoia: Exhibition of his Sculpture and Graphics . Allentown Art Museum, Allentown, Pennsylvania . Catalog.
- 1990/1991: The Bertoia Legacy. Sound and Motion . Payne Gallery at Moravian College, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania . Catalog.
literature
- Gilberto Ganzer (Ed.): Harry Bertoia. decisi che una sedia non poteva bastare . Silvana, Amisello Bolsano, Milan 2009, ISBN 978-88-366-1448-6 .
Web links
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Bertoia, Harry |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Bertzoia, Arieto (maiden name) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Italian-American artist, clay art sculptor and furniture designer |
| DATE OF BIRTH | March 10, 1915 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | San Lorenzo district of Arzana , Kingdom of Italy |
| DATE OF DEATH | November 6, 1978 |
| Place of death | Barto (Pennsylvania) , USA |