thumb|right|Untitled stainless steel wires set in artist's concrete base with aluminum trim by Harry Bertoia, 1965, [[Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden (Washington, D. C.)]]
Harry Bertoia (March 10, 1915 – November 6, 1978), son of Giuseppe Antonio Bertoia and Maria Secunda Mussio, was an Italian-born American artist, sound art sculptor, and modern furniture designer.
Early life and education
Bertoia was born March 10, 1915 in San Lorenzo d'Arzene, Pordenone, Italy, about 50 miles north of Venice and 70 miles south of the Austrian border. "Arri" Lorenzo, had one older brother, Oreste, and one younger sister, Ave. Ada, another sister, died as an infant of eighteen months old; she was the subject of one of his first paintings.
Until Grade 5, Arri, nicknamed Arieto (little Arri), went to school in nearby Arzene, Carsara. By the time he was a teenager his teacher told Arri's parents that Arri needed further training. He worked there until 1946, then sold his jewelry and monotypes until obtaining work with the Electronics Naval Lab in La Jolla. In 1950, he was invited to move to Pennsylvania to work with Hans and Florence Knoll. (Florence had also studied at Cranbrook and remembered Bertoia.) Knoll acquired an old leaky garage for Harry to set up shop in Bally, PA. The chairs became part of the “modern” furniture movement of the 1950s, later to be referred to as Midcentury Modern.
Sound sculpture
thumb|200px|Sound Sculpture
right|thumb|200px|Bertoia's "Textured Screen" caused much controversy when it was unveiled for the [[Old Dallas Central Library|Dallas Public Library in 1954.]]
thumb|200px|[[Sonambient record label showing Harry Bertoia's signature]]
By the mid-1950s, the chairs being produced by Knoll sold so well that the lump sum payment arrangement from Knoll allowed Bertoia to devote himself exclusively to sculpture and put a down payment on the 18th century Barto farmhouse he had been renting.
In the 1960s, he began experimenting with sounding sculptures of tall vertical rods on flat bases. He renovated the old barn into an atypical concert hall and put in about 100 of his favorite "Sonambient" sculptures. 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. In the late 1990s, his daughter found a large collection of near mint condition original albums stored away on his property in Pennsylvania. These were sold as collector's items. In 2015, these Sonambient recordings were re-issued by Important Records as a box set with a booklet of the history and previously unseen photos.
The sound sculptures are also featured on a 1975 record titled "The Sounds of Sound Sculpture".
Bertoia's work can be found in The Addison Gallery of American Art (Andover, Massachusetts), the Brooklyn Museum (New York City), the Cleveland Museum of Art, the Dallas Public Library, the Detroit Institute of Arts, the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden (Washington D.C.), the Honolulu Museum of Art, the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art (Kansas City, Missouri), the Nasher Sculpture Center (Dallas, Texas), the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Reading Public Museum (Reading, Pennsylvania), the Allentown Art Museum, Milwaukee Art Museum, the Smithsonian American Art Museum (Washington D.C.), the Vero Beach Museum of Art (Vero Beach, Florida), and the Walker Art Center (Minneapolis, Minnesota).
Bertoia's "Sunburst Sculpture" owned by the Joslyn Art Museum was originally installed in the Joslyn's Fountain Court. It is now
located in the lobby of the Milton R. Abrahams Branch of the Omaha Public Library. Lord Palumbo owns several Bertoia works which are on display at Kentuck Knob. Bertoia's "Sounding Sculpture" can be found in the plaza of The Aon Center, Chicago's fourth-tallest building. Another "Sounding Sculpture", considerably smaller than the one mentioned above, is featured in the Rose Terrace of the Chicago Botanic Garden, and a third very similar to the piece in Chicago called "Sounding Piece" was until 2003 on display at the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. The Herbert F Johnson Museum has 29 Bertoias of sculpture and print in its collection. As explained in October 3, 1995 piece in the weekly "Dear Uncle Ezra" column of the university newspaper:
<blockquote>
Dear Uncle Ezra,
What is that sound coming from the Johnson Museum? It's a pingy type sound that I guess could be some kind of wind chime but it seems like it's coming from the building itself.
— Just wondering
Dear Chiming In,
Well, it almost is coming from the building itself. What you hear is "Sounding Piece", a sculpture by Harry Bertoia that permanently resides on the sculpture court (outdoor balcony) on the second floor of the Johnson Museum. The chimes sway back and forth on tall rods and "ping" or "gong" into each other (depending on which chime and how hard they collide) when winds move them. It's one of my all-time favorites, well worth a visit if you haven't seen it. You can go out on to the sculpture court until at least the end of October. Once winter sets in, the chimes are secured so that they won't snap in the windy, icy weather.
Uncle Ezra
</blockquote>The sculpture was taken off view after it was damaged in a storm in 2003 [https://museum.cornell.edu/collections/search-result/artwork/?artwork-id=13771&ctx=YTo1OntzOjk6ImRhdGVTdGFydCI7czo3OiIyMDAwIEJDIjtzOjc6ImRhdGVFbmQiO3M6NDoiMjAyMyI7czoxMjoiY3VycmVudC1wYWdlIjtpOjE7czo0OiJ0eXBlIjtzOjc6ImtleXdvcmQiO3M6Nzoia2V5d29yZCI7czoxNToiImhhcnJ5IGJlcnRvaWEiIjt9]. Audiovisual footage of many of Bertoia's sound sculptures can be viewed on websites such as YouTube .
Other work
thumb|[[Marshall University Memorial Fountain in 2020.]]
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.
The 1954 Gordon Bunshaft building for Manufacturer's Hanover Trust, now JPMorgan Chase (510 Fifth Avenue at West 43rd Street, New York City) included a full building-width, second-floor screen-sculpture by Bertoia. It was dismantled and removed in 2010 by J. P. Morgan Chase.
At some point after 2011, the screen-sculpture was re-installed on the second floor, where it is now on view. Since October 2016, this location is the global flagship for The North Face, a California-based outdoor lifestyle brand.
Bertoia was also commissioned to make a screen sculpture for the Embassy of the United States in Caracas, Venezuela, in 1958. The building, located in the Chacao Municipality (former Sucre District), now serves as the headquarters of Venezuela's Ministry of the People's Power for Tourism, while the embassy was moved to a bigger site in Valle Arriba in 1995. Bertoia's sculpture, spanning the entire vertical length of the building, is still in place.
Harry's first European exhibit of his sculptural work took place at the US Pavilion of the 1958 Brussels World’s Fair, alongside Alexander Calder.
In 2019, the Harry Bertoia Foundation launched a catalogue raisonné project, which seeks to document and research the diverse and extensive artistic practice of the artist.
Missing sculpture rediscovered
December 2025 marked the major restoration and reinstallation of a 1970 masterwork by Bertoia in the atrium of General Motors’s new global headquarters in Detroit, Michigan. This event was announced by General Motors in December; the Detroit Free Press reported on the sculpture in January. Originally this piece was commissioned in 1970 by the J.L. Hudson Company for its anchor store at the Genesee Valley Mall, in Flint, Michigan. The Hudson Company wanted to create an artwork for the mall’s open court. The sculpture, a hanging piece 26-feett-tall "comprises two cloud-like aggregations of brazed steel rods—a technique Bertoia called “sunlit straw”—one suspended below the other."
A persistent sore throat and laryngitis led to the diagnosis of cancer in 1977. As a result Bertoia was determined to finish works in progress and put everything in order. He had produced thousands of works of art including his tonal barn collection, a beautiful limited edition monotype book, and album covers for his upcoming Sonambient long play phonographic albums. He used his passion and energy to fuel his goal.
His wife Brigitta died in 2007 shortly after her 87th birthday. Val and Lesta, two of his children, are artists themselves, while daughter Celia founded and directs the Harry Bertoia Foundation. Harry Bertoia is buried behind the Sonambient Barn in Pennsylvania beneath a huge 1-ton 10’ Bertoia double bronze gong.