BERTOIA
1915 – 1978
Born in San Lorenzo (PN – Italy) in 1915, Bertoia left his country to go to the United States with his family in 1930.
In 1936 he studied at the Class Technical College of Detroit where he worked with jewelry and painting.
From the beginning, while still a student and continuing throughout his career, Bertoia was fanatic about the use of metal, using it in all of his works. In 1943 he moved to Los Angeles where he was hired by a studio as a furniture designer. In California he met Eames, with whom he worked, experimenting with molded plywood for legs and airplane parts. In 1950 he was invited by the Knoll Company to create any object that he wished – hence the birth of the collection of chairs made of bent steel tubes, a form of sculpture and furniture all in one. It was precisely the introduction of metal wire, until then unheard for making furniture, which made Bertoia an icon of modern design.
Bertoia’s furniture, like his sculpture, expresses his concept of art: a point of encounter between form and space, organic forms, a human shape translated into art. According to Bertoia, his designs are intended to make spaces more pleasing and diversified, through a combination of technical work and creative art. In terms of his chairs, Bertoia writes that space runs across them and at a closer look you can see that his chairs are made mainly of air, as a sculpture. He is therefore above all a sculptor who is aware that the design of a chair requires functional solutions to problems, and yet sees the chair as a sculpture in space.
In 1953 he received the first important commission of his career as a sculptor, from General Motors, who requested that he create a series of great sculptures for its corporate offices in Michigan.
This was the first of a constantly increasing series of requests from architects to create works for most institutions and corporations of the time.
Bertoia dedicated the rest of his career to sculpture.
He died in Pennsylvania in 1978.
