Harry Bertoia may be best known for the Diamond chair, an airy icon of sculptured wire. But last week, New York’s Museum of Arts and Design debuted two exhibits showcasing some of the Italian-born sculptor and designer’s less familiar talents: his jewelry and his forays into sonic art.
In the early 1940s, when wartime rationing forced him to finesse his metalsmithing on a small scale, Bertoia crafted hundreds of decorative pieces with melted-down scraps of metal. Bent, Cast, and Forged: The Jewelry of Harry Bertoia features these investigations of form and material—mostly produced while he was a student attending Michigan’s Cranbrook Academy of Art— alongside several monotype prints.
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