The Harry Bertoia Foundation invites owners of works by Harry Bertoia to complete and submit the form below. Any information provided will be invaluable to the ongoing research of the Harry Bertoia Catalogue Raisonné project. Professional high-resolution images of the work may be mailed with this form. Please note that there will be a TEMPORARY PAUSE of entering objects into the catalogue beginning September 16, 2022, to prepare for the online public portal opening in March 2023. Collectors can still submit works, but they may not be reviewed for some time.
Application for Registration in Harry Bertoia Catalogue Raisonné
What is a Catalogue Raisonné?
This digital document seeks to create a comprehensive record of an artist’s entire oeuvre, documenting each object’s most fundamental qualities—date, dimensions, materials, etc.—as well as its provenance (ownership history), and exhibition and publications histories. For an artist like Bertoia, who was tremendously prolific and stylistically diverse, undertaking a Catalogue Raisonné is vital to gaining a thorough, accurate understanding of his artistic output. We will also be publishing explanations of Bertoia-specific techniques, materials, and categories. It will carry and concretize Harry Bertoia’s legacy into the future, with the basics freely open to the public and specific details on a subscription basis.
Harry Bertoia Foundation
1449 N 1400 W, B-11
St George, Utah 84770
Marin R. Sullivan, PhD
Office: +1.435.673.2355
Email: marinsullivan@harrybertoia.org
If you have any additional questions about the catalogue raisonné, the Foundation, or Harry Bertoia, feel free to get in touch via phone or email. Click here to learn more about the value of a catalogue raisonné to collectors.
Harry Bertoia Catalogue Raisonné Submission Guidelines
The Harry Bertoia Catalogue Raisonné Project seeks to document and research the diverse and extensive artistic practice of the Italian-American artist Harry Bertoia (1915-1978). The goal is to provide a comprehensive record and resource of the artist’s work, and will include his painting, graphics (including monotypes), furniture, jewelry, metalwork, sound recordings, and sculpture. An ongoing project, the Harry Bertoia Catalogue Raisonné will be available online, published in stages, and regularly updated to reflect ongoing research. It will be accessible to scholars, educators, collectors, arts professionals, and any member of the public wishing to gain a deeper understanding of Bertoia’s work.
Please note: the Harry Bertoia Catalogue Raisonné project does not authenticate or provide valuations of Harry Bertoia artworks.
Submissions
The Harry Bertoia Catalogue Raisonné project relies on the knowledge of collectors, dealers, and scholars. Current and former collectors of work by Harry Bertoia are invited to contact the project and/or submit a work(s) to be considered for inclusion. We also welcome new information on exhibitions and literature that include work by Bertoia or other relevant information to project.
For more information, please contact:
Dr. Marin R. Sullivan
Director, Harry Bertoia Catalogue Raisonné Project
marinsullivan@harrybertoia.org
Complete the Harry Bertoia Catalogue Raisonné form electronically by clicking here. Fill out the form and email to Dr. Marin R. Sullivan.
To mail submissions, please complete and mail the form to:
The Harry Bertoia Foundation
1449 N 1400 W, B-11
St. George, UT 84770
USA
The Harry Bertoia Catalogue Raisonné project is committed to the privacy of collectors. Ownership information submitted to the project is intended for internal research purposes only, and will not be made public in the digital Harry Bertoia Catalogue Raisonné without prior approval.
Qualifications for Inclusion in the Harry Bertoia Catalogue Raisonné
The Harry Bertoia Catalogue Raisonné observes the following Qualifications for Inclusion:
ARTWORKS
The Harry Bertoia Catalogue Raisonné project defines “artwork” as an object conceived of and created or authorized by Harry Bertoia during his lifetime and intended to be a part of his artistic practice. The present scope of research scheduled for publication in the digital Harry Bertoia Catalogue Raisonné include:
- Artworks from the following categories of Bertoia’s practice:
- Paintings
- Graphics, including: wood block prints; drawings; monotypes; and any work on paper indicated as a formal artwork by the artist
- Furniture, including: each of Bertoia’s original designs for Knoll and any prototypes fabricated by Bertoia
- Jewelry
- Metalwork
- Recordings
- Sculpture, including: large-scale commissions; sounding sculptures; and other discrete, three-dimensional objects
- Artworks created by Bertoia considered lost or destroyed, when there is sufficient documentation of the work’s prior existence
- Artworks designed by Bertoia, but fabricated by others following the artist’s instructions
- Reproductions of original artworks by Bertoia, authorized and made during the artist’s lifetime
Objects not included in the present scope of research or not considered for publication in the digital Harry Bertoia Catalogue Raisonné include, but are not limited to, the following:
- Works unfinished at the time of the artist’s death
- Posthumous works (works begun and/or completed after the artist’s death)
- Objects and elements discarded by the artist or not intended for presentation as a discrete artwork
- Material and technical studies or experiments
- Photographs taken by the artist and other ephemera related to the artist
- Individual objects fabricated or manufacturer in quantities greater than 10 (particularly relevant to Bertoia’s furniture, these are instead represented by a single “design” entry)
- Works created in the “style of” Bertoia by another individual
- Reproductions of original artworks by Bertoia not made by or authorized by the artist
- Works of questionable attribution or without adequate documentation
EXHIBITIONS
The list of exhibitions includes all solo and group exhibitions that featured the work of Harry Bertoia during his lifetime as well as selected exhibitions following the artist’s death.
At this time, the following exhibitions will not be included in the digital publication of the Harry Bertoia Catalogue Raisonné:
- Exhibitions featuring only mass-produced examples of Bertoia furniture
- Dealer and auction house showroom presentation
- Internally exhibited selections from public or private collections
- Permanent or semi-permanent displays of objects
BIBLIOGRAPHY
The bibliography includes writings by and about Harry Bertoia from books, essays, lectures, journal, magazine, and newspaper articles, exhibition catalogues, monographs, and other sources such as doctoral dissertations. Literature that does not make significant reference to artworks in the Harry Bertoia Catalogue Raisonné is also included when relevant to the understanding of Bertoia’s career.
Literature not currently scheduled for publication in the Harry Bertoia Catalogue Raisonné includes:
- Advertisements and other publicity materials
- Annual reports or recent acquisition publications from arts and other non-profit institutions
- Articles and other information related solely to the Harry Bertoia Foundation and its activities
- Auction or sales catalogues (unless otherwise noted due the inclusion of substantial, verified primary source material)
Detailed Instructions for Using Our PDF Application Form
Having trouble? We can help:
- If the PDF opens in a new tab in your internet browser, look for the download button on the upper right and save the PDF to your “Downloads” folder.
- Go to your “Downloads” folder and find the PDF document you just downloaded. Open the PDF with Adobe Acrobat Reader (click here to get the program for free).
- Fill in your answers. Save as you go.
- Click “Save” when you are done.
- Either email the completed PDF as instructed above, or print out a hard copy and mail it, instructions also above
Alternate How-To Instructions:
- If the PDF opens in a new tab in your internet browser, and you cannot use Adobe Acrobat Reader, the solution is simple.
- Fill in your answers in the PDF application in your internet browser.
- Fill in your answers all in one go, you cannot save and come back to it.
- When you are done, print the PDF to a hard copy or,
- When you are done, print the PDF to a file, (in most computer printer menus you will see an option similar to “Print to PDF”) and save it in your “Downloads” folder.
Marin R. Sullivan, PhD
Catalogue Raisonné Director
Director of the Harry Bertoia Catalogue Raisonné project, as well as co-curator of the major retrospective exhibition on Harry Bertoia, scheduled to open at the Nasher Sculpture Center in 2020.
Dr. Sullivan is a Chicago-based art historian and curator. Her primary research interests include the histories of modern and contemporary sculpture, and its interdisciplinary, intermedial dialogues with photography, design, and the built environment. Sullivan was most recently Assistant Professor of Art History at Keene State College in New Hampshire, and prior to her appointment served as the Henry Moore Post-Doctoral Research Fellow at the University of Leeds. She is the author of Sculptural Materiality in the Age of Conceptualism (2017), numerous articles in publications including Art History, History of Photography, the Journal of Curatorial Studies, and Sculpture Journal, and is co-editor of Postwar Italian Art Today: Untying ‘the Knot’ (2018). She is currently at work on a new book project, Alloys: American Sculpture and Architecture at Midcentury, which has been supported by fellowships from the Smithsonian American Art Museum and the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art.
This project is supported by The Henry Moore Foundation Grant and Wright Auction
