14 Facts About Harry Bertoia

Harry Bertoia was an Italian-born American artist, sound art sculptor, and modern furniture designer.

At age 15, given the opportunity to move to Detroit, Harry chose to adventure to America and live with his older brother, Oreste.

In 2019, the Harry Bertoia Foundation launched a catalogue raisonne project, which seeks to document and research the diverse and extensive artistic practice of the artist.

Harry Bertoia learned welding techniques at Santa Monica College and began experimenting with sound sculptures.

Harry Bertoia worked there until 1946, then sold his jewelry and monotypes until obtaining work with the Electronics Naval Lab in La Jolla.

Harry Bertoia ultimately produced over 50 commissioned public sculptures, many of which remain viewable.

Harry Bertoia renovated the old barn into an atypical concert hall and put in about 100 of his favorite "Sonambient" sculptures.

Harry Bertoia played the pieces in a number of concerts and even produced a series of eleven albums, all entitled "Sonambient," of the music made by his art, manipulated by his hands along with the elements of nature.

Harry Bertoia's "Sounding Sculpture" can be found in the plaza of The Aon Center, Chicago's fourth-tallest building.

Harry Bertoia was the sculptor commissioned to create the Marshall University Memorial Fountain in Huntington, West Virginia, to honor the university's football team in the wake of the plane crash that killed them on November 14,1970.

Harry Bertoia was commissioned to make a screen sculpture for the Embassy of the United States in Caracas, Venezuela, in 1958.

Harry Bertoia's sculpture, spanning the entire vertical length of the building, is still in place.

In 1943 Harry Bertoia married fellow Cranbrook student Brigitta Valentiner.

Harry Bertoia died of lung cancer in Barto, Pennsylvania, at the age of 63 on November 6,1978 and is buried underneath one of the sculptural gongs he created.