Harry Bertoia, Sculptor by Kompass Nelson June;

Author:Kompass Nelson, June;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Wayne State University Press
Published: 2017-09-05T00:00:00+00:00

Investigations

Quite naturally some of Bertoia’s commissions were more successful than others, and this applies also to the hundreds of smaller sculptures he created during the same period. One characteristic, however, that stands out among them all is their variety which, paradoxically enough, is particularly evident in whole groups of sculptures having great similarity, like the screens or the series of small bush-like forms. Like musical variations on a theme, they display the sculptor’s virtuosity. For Bertoia does work principally in only four major areas or themes, into which almost every one of his sculptures can be categorized. “The validity of an idea is tested each time it takes physical shape. As long as new shapes keep forming, the idea has not yet reached fulfillment,” he says, and his work attests to his continuing investigations into those concepts which, from the beginning, have interested him the most.

First are his studies in light and space which began with the monoprints and their “movable type” method of using repeated small forms. This technique led to the three-dimensional experiments described and illustrated above (plate 17). The introduction of metal for the screens kept the work monochromatic for a while, but light and its changing effects were always important (plates 21, 22, 25). The Staempfli Gallery’s Hollow Forms is another result of these studies (plate 57), as is the small screen owned by the Theodore Lyman Wright Art Center at Beloit College, Beloit, Wisconsin. The latter was shown in a remarkably representative though succinct exhibition, “Sculpture 1950-1958” (twenty-three pieces), at the Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin College, Oberlin, Ohio. In his catalog commentary Forbes Whiteside alluded to Bertoia’s work:

Open constructions, which so strongly suggest steel and glass-enclosed buildings, have this in common with modern architecture: both are more concerned with modulating space than mass. If some sculptured works seem to lack a proper amount of bulk, contemplate the negative as well as the positive masses. Rods and bars define the edges and corners of the masses while each thin plate establishes the position and angle of one plane of a transparent volume.1

Later experiments in light and space became airier and airier as the modulus itself became a textured rod. While maintaining a basic monotone, Bertoia brought some color into play in the Northwestern National piece (plate 39) and in the one for W. Hawkins Ferry (plate 51), as well as in the Golden Screen owned by Robert W. Sarnoff (plate 58) and another small one owned by the Graham Foundation of Chicago, which Bertoia considers the most successful of all. From the St. Louis Airport screen of 1955 (plate 76) to the Brooklyn Federal Court screen of 1967 (plate 43), color has added further interest as his studies in light and space continue. In a rare speech given in 1955 at the International Design Conference in Aspen, Colorado, Bertoia revealed some of his thoughts with regard to color:

What happens when structure and color get together? Exploration of the possibilities of color leads to a new and very significant function.

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