Harry Bertoia was born in San Lorenzo, Italy and came to America in 1930. In 1936, he studied at the Detroit Society of Arts and Crafts and then attended Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield, Michigan, where he later taught and established the metalworking department. During this time, he began experimenting with jewelry forms and explored ideas that would later emerge into his sculpture. This eventually evolved into the sculpting of kinetic objects, many of them resembling mazes comprised of thin rods with a brush-like appearance. In 1943, he moved to Venice, California and worked with designer Charles Eames in war efforts until 1946. That first year, he attended a welding class at Santa Monica City College. In 1947, he moved to La Jolla to work in the Point Loma Navel Electronics Laboratory publications department creating training manuals for equipment operators. During this time, he continued making jewelry and monoprints and began his first experiments with metal sculpture. In 1949, he moved to Barto, Pennsylvania at which point he joined Hans Knoll in Knoll Associates where he became a prolific architectural sculptor. His first commission was a screen for the General Motors Technical Center in Warren, Michigan. His first sculpture exhibition was in 1951 at the Knoll Showroom in New York. It was his custom not to sign his works because he believed that the piece itself was a signature, that what he created belonged to the universe, and that a signature called attention to the artist rather than the work of art Museum References: Artists Rights Society, Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center, Cranbook Art Museum, Dallas Museum of Art, Denver Museum of Art, Flint Institute of Arts, Georgia Museum of Art, Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Joslyn Art Museum, Kirkland Museum of Fine & Decorative Art, Kresque Art Museum, Miami Art Museum, National Gallery of Art, Neuberger Gallery of Art, Oklahoma City Museum of Art, Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Reading Public Museum, San Diego Museum of Art, The John & Mable Ringling Museum of Art, The State Museum of Pennsylvania, The University of Michigan Museum of Art, University of Kentucky Art Museum, Wright Museum of Art