Throughout the 1950s, Harry Bertoia developed a structural system for his sculptures that was rooted in modernist principles of architectural construction.  These sculptures, broadly perceived as screens rendered in both monumental and residential scales, were executed on a grid-like framework.  The works of this period gave way to a more organic approach to sculpture at the outset of the 1960s.  The present sculpture is a seminal work from this transitional period.  The influence of nature becomes a prevailing force in the works that emerge at this time, with a clear use of stems and flowering forms that branch and expand from a central core.  Bush, Dandelion and Tree forms start to appear at this time, however, the present lot tells another story.

Theoretical and spiritual concerns were given room to emerge in the work of Harry Bertoia at this time.  20th century art, under the influence of Cubism and Futurism had contemplated the projection of time and space. Bertoia began to consider the broader cosmos and his sculptures were both a symbol of these concepts and a metaphor for the expanding Universe.  His work was no longer bound by the physical constraints of the material, but rather projected into space utilizing the surrounding ethereal space as a foil for the gravity-laden material of choice: metal. Bertoia’s Untitled (Screen) can be viewed as an extension of visual innovations Marcel Duchamp portrayed a moving body in space in his Nude Descending a Staircase.  The idea of space-time rendered in the arts was a novel concept and embraced by artists, composers and poets and was encouraged in Harry Bertoia by his acquaintance R. Buckminster Fuller. The notion of time and space, or a projection of infinite space within a specific confined object, is conveyed in the present lot.  After this brief moment, Harry Bertoia’s screens became more uniform and ethereal, composed of brazed copper wire instead of appropriated iron spikes.  The present masterwork by Harry Bertoia retains the visual gravity of his early work, while predicting the future development of sculpture that deals as much with the space in between and around the form as the object itself.  This transitional and exquisitely executed sculptural screen is among the finest of Harry Bertoia’s early sculpture. Created at the precise moment Bertoia’s art was to coalesce into recognizable series, defining the artist for posterity.


Together with a certificate of authenticity from the Harry Bertoia Foundation.