“The direction [of my sculpture that] I have been most interested in indicates an assemblage of components held together as if by a magnetic force. It is desirable to leave the equation somewhat incomplete, thereby giving the observer a chance for completion.”
—Harry Bertoia, 1955
A 1952 promotional image for Knoll International, Inc. illustrates one of Harry Bertoia’s wire chairs sitting next to a multi-plane sculputre similar to the present lot. The photo, taken during a period of immense production and possibility for Bertoia, captures the worlds that Bertoia simultaneously occupied at this time: the functional and the sculptural; the commercial and the artistic; the rigid and the organic. Throughout the 1950s, Bertoia gained international attention and began to create more purely sculptural and architectonic sculptures such as the present work.
In 1958, the same year that Bertoia created the present multi-plane sculpture, architect Don Hatch commissioned him to create a monumental screen for the United States Embassy in Caracas, Venezuela. In the late 1940s, Hatch moved to Venezuela to preside as the Chief Architect of International Basic Economy Corporation, a company founded by Nelson Rockefeller with the mission of strengthening the nation’s economy. Such initiatives, paired with the nation’s booming oil economy as well as nationwide modernization projects, allowed the country to be a hotbed for international modern designers such as Hatch and Bertoia. The following decade was not only a fruitful one for Bertoia but also for modern design and architecture in Venezuela. (Only two years before the execution of the present lot had modernist architect Gio Ponti designed Villa Planchart, a masterpiece of modern architecture in Caracas, which interestingly included sculptures by Bertoia in its interior.)
Hatch also owned a gallery-cum-showroom in Caracas called Galeria Don Hatch which displayed a variety of craft and fine art, ranging from Scandinavian ceramics and glass to Mexican tapestries and Surrealist art. The present sculpture was sold to Don Hatch in 1958—the same year that the gallery mounted a one-man show for Bertoia—and was later acquired by the notable Caracas-based gallery Estudio Actual before being sold in the 1980s to private collectors in South America where it has remained since. The sculpture is not only a representative example of the material and sculptural explorations that Bertoia undertook at the time but it also symbolizes the cusp of Bertoia’s burgeoning career. Using a torch, Bertoia melted copper and brass onto the steel skeleton in a way that was not altogether dissimilar from contemporary Abstract Expressionist artists such as Arshile Gorky and Willem de Kooning's use of paint on canvas.
Provenance
Don Hatch Galleria, Caracas, acquired directly from the artist, 1958 Estudio Actual, Caracas Acquired from the above by the present owner, 1980s
Literature
Nancy N. Schiffer and Val O. Bertoia, The World of Bertoia, Atglen, 2003, pp. 60, 63, 65-66, 80 for similar examples Celia Bertoia, The Life and Work of Harry Bertoia: The Man, the Artist, the Visionary, Atglen, 2015, p. 78 for a similar example Beverly H. Twitchell, Bertoia: The Metalworker, London, 2019, pp. 152-55 for similar examples
circa 1958 Copper and brass melt-coated steel. 43 5/8 x 18 1/2 x 21 1/2 in. (110.8 x 47 x 54.6 cm) Together with a certificate of authenticity from the Harry Bertoia Foundation.