INSCRIBED ASSOCIATION COPY

HARRY BERTOIA SCULPTOR
June Kompass Nelson

9.25 x 9.75 hardcover book with 138 pages with 85 b/w plates of Bertoia¹s varied work in jewelry, stabiles, wire constructions, Knoll chair designs, braised metal screens, spill cast bronze, rod and tube fountains, stainless steel sprays/dandelions, bushes and sounding sculptures. Also includes a timeline and bibliography.

The finest book to date on the prolific sculptor/designer Harry Bertoia. Nelson thoroughly covers the progression of his work from jewelry to the sounding sculptures for which he is best known, and illustrates his work with photographs of both public and private pieces. June Kompass Nelson also wrote Harry Bertoia Printmaker, 1988.

Both Harry Bertoia and Charles Niedringhaus worked as design research assistants for Herbert Matter on the KNOLL INDEX OF DESIGNS [NYC: Knoll Associates, Inc., with Hockaday Associates, 1950]. Niedringhaus went on to become a Knoll Executive while Bertoia became an internationally famous sculptor. This edition of HARRY BERTOIA SCULPTOR is an exceptional association copy of a truly rare book.

Italian artist and furniture designer, Harry Bertoia (1916-1978), was thirty-seven years old when he designed the patented Diamond chair for Knoll in 1952. An unusually beautiful piece of furniture, it was strong yet delicate in appearance, and an immediate commercial success in spite of being made almost entirely by hand. With the Diamond chair, Bertoia created an icon of modern design and introduced a new material, industrial wire mesh to the world of furniture design.

Bertoia¹s career began in the 1930¹s as a student at the Cranbrook Academy of Art where he re-established the metal-working studio and, as head of that department, taught from 1939 until 1943 when it was closed due to wartime restrictions on materials. During the war, Bertoia moved to Venice, California, and worked with Charles and Ray Eames at the Evans Products Company, developing new techniques for molding plywood.

1946 was a pivotal year for Bertoia. He became an American citizen, moved to Bally, Pennsylvania, near the Knoll factory and established his own design and sculpting studio where he produced numerous successful designs for Knoll. As a sculptor, Bertoia created abstract freestanding metal works, some of which resonated with sound when touched or had moving elements that chimed in the wind. Bertoia received awards from the American Institute of Architects in 1973 and the American Academy of Letters in 1975. All of his work bears the hallmarks of a highly skilled and imaginative sculptor, as well as an inventive designer, deeply engaged with the relationship between form and space.

Charles Niedringhaus graduated as one of 5 students in the first graduating class of the Institute of Design in 1942. As a student, he served as Institute Director Lįszló Moholy-Nagy¹s asssitant in the Basic and Product Design Workshop, as well as assisting the Director in two seminars on Contemporary Art and Design problems. The student Niedringhaus designed and built a prototype machine dubbed the ³Smell-O-Meter.² This device proved less useful than the machine he co-developed with Nathan Lerner for forming plywood that was used in making most of the school's furniture.

After graduation, Niedringhaus¹ skills in furniture design and production quickly came to the attention of Hans Knoll -- always on the lookout for designers to work for what was then Knoll Associates. Niedringhaus began his long and fruitful career with Knoll when he assisted Herbert Matter with the production of the KNOLL INDEX OF DESIGNS in 1950. Then Niedringhaus and Florence Knoll were granted a patent on July 21, 1953 for their design of a sofa/daybed on angular steel frame.

Throughout his long career with Knoll, Niedringhaus often acted as an artistic liaison linking the inspired visions of designers such as Isamu Noguchi with Knoll's engineers, draughtsmen, and marketing departments. This confluence of art and business was fundamental to Knoll's identity and success. That same confluence of art and business first encountered as Moholy-Nagy¹s student in Chicago helped Charles Niedringhaus secure his rightful spot in the pantheon of American Modernism.

REFERENCES: Laszlo Moholy-Nagy: THE NEW VISION and ABSTRACT OF AN ARTIST. NYC: Wittenborn, 1946. pgs. 24-5: figs. 2 a.-b.; Laszlo Moholy-Nagy: VISION IN MOTION. Chicago: Theobald 1947. pg. 46: fig. 20; pgs. 88-9: figs. 86-92; Herbert Matter (designer), Knoll Associates: KNOLL INDEX OF DESIGNS. NYC: Knoll Associates, Inc., with Hockaday Associates, 1950; David Travis, Elizabeth Siegel (editors): TAKEN BY DESIGN: PHOTOGRAPHS FROM THE INSTITUTE OF DESIGN, 1937-1971. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002.

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