Enjoy our first in a series of guest features, authored by the Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Harry Bertoia Foundation.
Wilbur Springer, now mostly retired, owned an art gallery in Emmaus, PA, and was a real estate appraiser for several decades. Bill has been a close friend and art consultant to the Bertoia family since the late 1970s. He plays a mean pickle ball game and currently lives in Florida.
I am compelled to write about Harry Bertoia's Circular Motion, so named by Val Bertoia in the Payne Gallery catalog, The Bertoia Legacy: Sound and Motion, of Bethlehem, PA, 1990. 10.5 x 17 inches, c. 1972, welded bronze wire.
This extraordinary sculpture comes from Harry Bertoia's personal collection. It was at his home during his lifetime and found several sites over the years. There are images of it next to the Sonambient Barn, in open grassy areas and the family remembers it in the fountain by the house. It is one of his most fascinating works that I have studied. Similar to the typical and sometimes complex bush sculptures, it is organic in structure but unlike the bush forms it boasts more complexity and diversity.
There is a central pod with a base that replicates floral formations (style, stigma, ovary and ovule). This two part form contains two typical Bertoia sculpture forms which can be found in prior and later works. Stemming from the central pod are eight metal flowers in various stages of growth and all but one has an opening center pod. Each of these eight flowers, with the outer leaves opening up, are all turning as if they are moving toward the sun. The one outer form that has no central pod has completely opened and has an extra leaf (see third image lower left). Both the outer leaves and pods harp back to other Bertoia sculpture styles and subjects such as the welded tubular fountain sculptures and their maquettes.
Below the eight outer formations are smaller forms that stem from the same branch, again in floral composition with receptacle and sepal. Nearly all of these pieces are constructed using bronze wires with an applied green patina. The surface of the base has been mottled and appears earth-like:
During Bertoia's career he often worked using specific forms; the tonals, the bushes, the multi-planes, the wire forms and others. It is rare to find several forms and techniques integrated into a single sculpture like this one. It is even more unusual to find a Bertoia sculpture that attempts to interact with the outside world in that the leaves of this sculpture appear to move toward the sun. As stated in the Allentown Art Museum catalog from 1976, "Bertoia’s geometry is nature reduced to its structure."
This special piece remained in the Bertoia estate until I acquired it from Lesta Bertoia in 2016.
