Harry Bertoia

HARRY BERTOIA (Italy, 1915 – USA, 1978).
Children's chair, 1950.
Black enamelled metal.
The metal has slight oxidation.
Measurements: 65 x 53 x 49 cm.
The seat and back of this children's chair have an openwork design that gives it a light and airy aesthetic. The seat features slightly upturned sides that complement the rounded lines of the backrest. Thin metal legs contribute to the chair's minimalist look
Painter, graphic artist, sculptor, university professor and furniture designer, Harry Bertoia emigrated to the United States when he was fifteen, and it will be there where he developed his training and career. He studied at the Detroit Society of Arts and Crafts and later at the Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield, Michigan, where he later taught and created the metalwork department. In these years he began to experiment with jewelry forms, and to explore ideas that would later emerge in his sculpture and his designs. In 1943 he began his collaboration with the designer Charles Eames, with whom he would work until 1946. After a period working for Point Loma Navel Electronics as a creator of equipment manuals, in 1949 he joined Hans Knoll at Knoll Associates. His first sculpture exhibition took place at the Knoll Showroom in New York in 1951, and the following year Knoll patented his most famous furniture design, the welded-rod “Diamond” chair. Bertoia's designs are currently present in the collections of important contemporary art and design museums, such as the MoMA in New York and many others.