Homage to Performing Art
Dublin Core
Title
Subject
Description
Homage to Performing Art, 1975, Bronze
Harry Bertoia (Italian)
Suspended inside the lobby of the Annenberg Center for Performing Arts and hanging from the ceiling is the bronze-tensil structure Homage to Performing Art by the Italian born artist, Harry Bertoia (1915-1978).
Completed in 1975, this fascinating sculpture is just one of thousands that he made in his lifetime. 
It is fitting that a work by Bertoia would be included within a facility created for theater and musical performance because he had a great love for music, so much so that he had produced a series of “sound sculptures” beginning in 1960. Also referred to as tonal structures, his sound sculptures were each a fusion of auditory elements and sculpture materials such as copper rods and cylinder caps.
He even recorded albums of the auditory elements of the sound sculptures and claimed that his tonal pieces were a form of art that you could see and hear, which is a sensory experience that could be comparable to the audience’s experiences in the theater spaces contained by the Annenberg Center itself.
In addition to his passion for supporting education, he also had a love for the performing arts and it makes sense that he would donate the Bertoia piece given its title.
Bertoia was originally from Italy, but had moved to Pennsylvania in 1950 and lived in the state until his death in 1978. He lived on a farm and owned a barn where he would create his sound sculptures and create auditory experiences for visitors to his home. He had many design talents besides sculpture design. Before making his tonal structures he was a talented furniture designer and initially had moved to Pennsylvania after being invited to work for the Hans and Florence Knoll of the Knoll, Inc furniture design company. He invented a wildly popular chair that became part of a modern furniture movement that began in the 1960s.