Wright Auction

While Harry Bertoia established himself largely through his ingenious mid-century furniture and jewelry designs, this success afforded him the opportunity to focus predominantly on sculpture and large-scale installations starting in the mid-1950s. From his famous Sonambient works to imposing gongs to elaborate wire assemblages to organic motifs inspired by dandelions, bushes, willows, and other trees, Bertoia orchestrated metals into by turns monumental and delicate arrangements that defy both expectations and the laws of gravity.

Bertoia orchestrated metals into by turns monumental and delicate arrangements that defy both expectations and the laws of gravity.

Another of Bertoia's favorite forms was the multi-plane construction. The present lot is a particularly impressive, and unusually colorful, example in welded and enameled steel, created circa 1955. Given the scale of this work—measuring slightly under three feet in height— it might have been a model for a larger sculpture, although that cannot be confirmed. What is certain is that this carefully tiered composition is part of a broader concern Bertoia had with exploring the potential of suspended planes and other geometric shapes to create a sense of depth and the illusion of movement.

This dramatic multi-plane sculpture shares striking formal properties with a range of grand examples that Bertoia produced for important commissions. These include installations for Eero Saarinen's General Motors Technical Center in Warren, Michigan (1953), the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Chapel (1954), the Dallas Public Library (1955), the First National Bank of Miami (1958), the U.S. Embassy in Caracas, Venezuela (1958), and other notable sites. In some cases, these public art projects were celebrated immediately; while, in other cases, they created controversy given their boldly modern aesthetic. However, over half a century later, Bertoia's multi-plane works are not only lauded by design historians, but they still provoke strong reactions, and usually admiration, from the population at large.

Working with the greatest architects of the 20th century, such as Eero Saarinen, Gordon Bunshaft, I.M. Pei, Minoru Yamasaki and Edward Durell Stone, Harry Bertoia created more than fifty large-scale sculptures in prominent public spaces located in cities throughout the United States and around the world (Norway, Venezuela). Like his private works, Bertoia’s commissioned sculptures are aesthetic objects that explore natural phenomena such as light, motion and sound. Much larger in scale, these works function within the broader constraints of architecture, transforming and interacting within the spaces in which they reside.

Much larger in scale, these works function within the broader constraints of architecture, transforming and interacting within the spaces in which they reside.

Bertoia’s first large-scale commission was completed in 1953 for the General Motors Technical Center in Warren, Michigan designed by Eero Saarinen, a colleague and friend from his days at the Cranbook Academy of Art. For this project, Bertoia created a Multi-Plane screen to separate the restaurant from the entryway of the interior. The welded screen, of brass melt-coated panels connected by rods, features alternating patterns of solids and voids that create a constantly shifting and beautiful play of lights and shadows while providing privacy for those behind it. The following year Bertoia was commissioned by Gordon Bunshaft of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill for the Manufacturers Hanover Trust Company in New York to create a screen dividing the public and private sides of the bank’s main floor. This seminal Multi-Plane screen, nearly twice the size of the work he created for General Motors, located on 5th Avenue in New York, is widely admired and critically acclaimed; it has become the most recognizable work by Harry Bertoia. Also in 1954, Bertoia was invited to design a sculpture for the Chapel at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Massachusetts designed by Eero Saarinen. For the simple brick curved apse with a shell-dome ceiling, Bertoia suspended brass-melt coated panels and cut out shapes from twenty threads behind the altar. The individual elements, increasing in density as they near the floor, capture and reflect the light from the domed roof creating an ethereal experience.

These early masterpieces opened the door to many significant sculptural commissions, both from friends and colleagues as well as other noteworthy architects, and to invitations to participate in internationally acclaimed exhibitions such as the World Fairs of 1957 in Brussels and 1964 in New York. While many of Bertoia’s early large-scale forms were Multi-Plane screens, by the 1960s he was exploring other ideas for public sculpture which paralleled the techniques of his smaller scaled works. Significant projects such as his Dandelion fountain for the Joslyn Art Museum in Omaha, Nebraska (Stone 1963), a molten bronze mural for the Dulles International Airport in Chantilly, Virginia (Saarinen 1963) and a Welded Form fountain for the Civic Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (Stone 1967) illustrate the depth and variety of Bertoia’s unique artistic vision.

Bertoia repeatedly rose to the challenge of creating works that aligned with the architectural vision for a given space by creating works to highlight and complement the unique characteristics of their environments. Over the course of his career, he created more than 50 large scale public commissions across the globe.