Harry Bertoia
| Harry Bertoia | |
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Harry Bertoia's Birthplace (Barn)
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| Born |
March 10, 1915 San Lorenzo, near Pordenone |
| Died | November 6, 1978 (aged 63) Barto, Pennsylvania |
| Nationality | Italian-born American |
| Spouse(s) | Brigitta Valentiner |
Harry Bertoia (March 10, 1915 in San Lorenzo, Pordenone, Italy – November 6, 1978 in Barto, Pennsylvania), [1] was an Italian-born American artist, sound art sculptor, and modern furniture designer.
At the age of 15, given the choice to stay in drought ridden Italy or move to Detroit, Harry chose to adventure to America and live with his older brother, Oreste. After learning the language and the bus schedule, he enrolled in Cass Technical High School, where he studied art and design and learned the skill of handmade jewelry making. In 1936 he attended the Art School of the Detroit Society of Arts and Crafts, now known as the College for Creative Studies. The following year in 1937 he received a scholarship to study at the Cranbrook Academy of Art where he encountered Walter Gropius, Edmund N. Bacon and Ray and Charles Eames and Florence Knoll for the first time.
Starting out as a painting student but soon being asked to take over the metal workshop in 1939, Bertoia taught jewelry design and metal work. Later, as the war effort made metal a rare and very expensive commodity he began to focus his efforts on jewelry making, even designing and creating wedding rings for Ray Eames and Edmund Bacon's wife Ruth. When all the metal was taken up by war efforts, he became the graphics instructor. Still at Cranbrook, in 1943 he married Brigitta Valentiner, and then moved to California to work for Charles and Ray at the Molded Plywood Division of the Evans Product Company. Bertoia worked there until 1946, then sold his jewelry and monotypes until obtaining work with the Electronics Naval Lab in La Jolla. In 1950, he was invited to move to Pennsylvania to work with Hans and Florence Knoll. (Florence was also a Cranbrook Graduate.) During this period he designed five wire pieces that became known as the Bertoia Collection for Knoll. Among these was the famous diamond chair, a fluid, sculptural form made from a welded lattice work of steel.
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