Wright Auction

Harry Bertoia collaborated with the 20^th century’s greatest architects making more than fifty large-scale sculptures in public spaces around the world during his lifetime. Bertoia repeatedly rose to the challenge of creating works that aligned with the architectural vision for a given space by highlighting and complementing the unique characteristics of the environment. Tangible objects of beauty, Bertoia’s commissioned works transform and interact within the space that they reside by adding elements of luminosity, sensuality, and tactility.

Bertoia’s screen for the chapel at Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, 1954.

It is Bertoia’s own explorations into the phenomena of light, space and proportion that led to his intimate understanding of architecture. One of his earliest and most noteworthy architectural commissions was the screen Bertoia completed in 1954 for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge designed by his friend Eero Saarinen. For the simple brick curved apse with a shell-dome ceiling, Bertoia suspended brass-melt coated panels and cut out shapes from twenty threads behind the altar. Increasing in density as they near the floor, the panels capture and reflect the light from the domed skylight creating an ethereal experience of lights and darks.

The present lot is a likely an early study for the important MIT commission. A free-standing sculpture, this important work features metal shapes on vertical rods ascending from a wooden base. The wood base and the nails to which the rods are adhered indicate that this work is a study for a larger project. Like the suspended elements of the large-scale work, the geometric shapes are placed horizontally (not common for Bertoia) at irregular intervals catching the light from various angles imitating the fluttering of wings or leaves falling from a tree. Bertoia used studies such as this to explore the qualities of light and space. Unlike this work, where the density of the pieces remains consistent along the rods, the screen at MIT features a gradient.

Jewel-like in its execution, this rare and extraordinary study is emblematic of this highly experimental time in Bertoia’s career which ultimately led to numerous projects and installations related to architecture.