Brooch

Designer: Harry Bertoia

c. 1950

Sterling silver, ebony wood, thread

Minneapolis Institute of Art

A rectangular brooch is constructed with dark thread wrapped around a frame, featuring a central black rectangular inlay with a silver pin. Red thread is visible beneath the black inlay. The three brooches shown here exhibit Bertoia's skill as a designer/craftsman. He skillfully manipulated and forged silver and thread to create wearable pieces that explored qualities of transparency, biomorphism, and zoomorphism. The aesthetic that he helped develop proved extremely influential in the jewelry field throughout the 1960s. Jewelry was part of Bertoia's creative output for a relatively short period of time, mainly during and after World War II when restrictions on metal forced him to work on a small scale. By 1949, architect Ralph Rapson, who had known Bertoia during their time as students at the Cranbrook Academy of A