Design  
11 June 2015
Harry Bertoia, prototype chair - Image 1 of 4
Harry Bertoia, prototype chair - Image 2 of 4
Harry Bertoia, prototype chair - Image 3 of 4
Harry Bertoia, prototype chair - Image 4 of 4
Design  
Harry Bertoia, prototype chair - Image 1 of 4
Harry Bertoia, prototype chair - Image 2 of 4
Harry Bertoia, prototype chair - Image 3 of 4
Harry Bertoia, prototype chair - Image 4 of 4
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Harry Bertoia

prototype chair

USA, c. 1940
birch plywood, dowel rods 33½ h × 18 w × 21 d in (85 × 46 × 53 cm)
estimate: $10,000–15,000
result: $22,500
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provenance: Acquired directly from the artist | Private collection, Pennsylvania | Wright, Modern Design, 20 March 2005, Lot 135 | Private collection, New York
literature: The Life and Work of Harry Bertoia: The Man, The Artist, The Visionary, Bertoia, pg. 52 illustrates this example

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Experimenting with Plywood

A One-of-a-Kind Chair by Harry Bertoia

Likely his earliest seating design, the present lot presages Bertoia’s innovative works for Knoll in the 1950s. Made roughly a decade earlier, this experimental form in plywood reveals the influence of Alvar Aalto and Marcel Breuer (Lot 279) and it speaks to the short time during the war that he worked for Charles and Ray Eames at the Molded Plywood Division of Evans Products. The wooden rod construction of the seat and back points to Bertoia’s use of metal rods in his iconic wire chair designs still in production by Knoll today. This one-of-a-kind chair remained in the artist’s personal collection for many years. 

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