Prototype Chair
This chair is one of Harry Bertoia’s first pieces of furniture and one of the few surviving pieces of his work in wood. Demonstrating his investigation of novel methods of construction, this is a rare and outstanding example of Bertoia’s experimentation with piecing together and laminating massive wood with veneers—his singular contribution to plywood, a modernist-favored medium that also intrigued designers such as Alvar Aalto and Marcel Breuer. The dowel construction of this chair is clearly an antecedent to the welded metal rod constructions of the chairs Bertoia would later design for Knoll Associates.
Artwork Details
- Title: Prototype Chair
- Designer: Harry Bertoia (American (born Italy), San Lorenzo, Friuli 1915–1978 Barto, Pennsylvania)
- Date: ca. 1940
- Medium: Birch plywood, dowel rods, resin coatings
- Dimensions: 33 1/2 × 17 13/16 × 19 7/8 in. (85.1 × 45.2 × 50.5 cm)
- Classification: Furniture
- Credit Line: Purchase, Gift of Theodore J. Edlich Jr., by exchange, 2016
- Object Number: 2016.669
- Curatorial Department: Modern and Contemporary Art
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Harry Bertoia
ca. 1943
Harry Bertoia
Knoll
1952
Harry Bertoia
Knoll
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Harry Bertoia
Knoll
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Harry Bertoia
ca. 1940
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