“[It] starts with the steel mill. I take this material, heat treat it with bronze and other alloys and provide a texture and a lasting surface. These metal parts are then so placed in relation to each other as to make the most of any given space.”
—Harry Bertoia, Arts and Architecture, January 1955Composed of hundreds of steel wires coated in brass and welded together, the present work, with its naturalistic regularity like the lines found in a bushel of wheat or water crystalizing, transcends traditional notions of sculpture. Its open, jagged form suggests a sense of continuous movement, inviting viewers to explore the interplay of light and shadow within its intricate network of metal rods.
Harry Bertoia with Sunlit Straw (1964). Artwork: © 2024 Estate of Harry Bertoia / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York This straw form is reminiscent of Harry Bertoia’s Sunlit Straw (1964), a large-scale installation commissioned by Minoru Yamasaki to be included in his design of the Northwestern National Life Insurance Company building in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Like Sunlit Straw which was designed to be experienced overhead like a Greek frieze, the present work hangs from above, commanding attention while gracefully articulating space without enclosing it.
Provenance
Wright, Chicago, "Modernist 20th Century," June 6, 2004, lot 360
Acquired from the above by the present ownerLiterature
Ganzer Gilberto, Harry Bertoia: Decisi che una sedia non poteva bastare, Milan, 2009, p. 204 for a similar example
Catalogue Essay
The present lot has been registered in the Harry Bertoia Catalogue Raisonné as number S.WI.101.
Property from a Private Collection, Colorado
6
Untitled (Straw Form)
circa 1960
Brass-covered steel, copper.
48 x 73 x 19 1/2 in. (121.9 x 185.4 x 49.5 cm)
Estimate
$100,000 - 150,000
Sold for $292,100
Benjamin Green
Associate Specialist
Associate Head of Sale
bgreen@phillips.com
+1 917 207 9090
Design
New York Auction 5 June 2024
