Artist, sculptor, furniture designer, jeweler and musician Harry Bertoia revolutionized 20th-century sculpture by introducing sound as a decidedly critical component. Yet despite his formidable achievements his recognition faded after his death in 1978. Now the Italian-born sculptor’s artistry is returning to center stage where it rightfully belongs.

Bertoia’s Sounding Sculptures are organically based, with some composed of hundreds of reed-like bronze rods emitting hushed tones like the wind rustling through brush. Regarding his unique contribution to sculpture, Bertoia himself said it best: “For a number of years I had realized that sculpture had existed in silence through time. Looking at sculpture, like walking in the forest, I thought: Why is sound left outside?”

Born in San Lorenzo, Italy, in 1915, Bertoia immigrated to Detroit in 1930. His artistic talents earned him a scholarship to the prestigious Cranbrook Academy of Art in Michigan, where pivotal figures in the art world such as Bauhaus architect Walter Gropius and designer Eliel Saarinen held court. After graduation, he stayed at Cranbrook to re-open the metalworking department.

Bertoia also concentrated on monoprints and sent 100 of his prints to the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum of Non-Objective Painting for evaluation. To his amazement, museum director Hilla Rebay snapped up some for the museum and others for herself. In 1943, the Solomon Guggenheim Foundation showcased 19 of those prints. Two years later, the greater museum world feted Bertoia with an exhibition of his monotypes at the San Francisco Museum of Art. Even his marriage was steeped in the distinguished art community: In 1943, he wed Brigitta Valentiner, the daughter of Wilhelm R. Valentiner, the Detroit Institute of Art’s director and Rembrandt expert.

With metal in short supply during the war years, Bertoia resorted to a more cost-effective art form—jewelry—and quickly attracted a sophisticated clientele. He then joined Charles and Ray Eames in California doing experimental work on molded plywood and turned to manufacturing airplane parts when he wasn’t designing furniture. Then, during a two-year stint at Point Loma Naval Electrical Lab, he started creating sculpture.

In 1950, Bertoia moved to Pennsylvania at the invitation of Hans and Florence Knoll, who gave him carte blanche to design either furniture or sculpture. It was during this time that Bertoia created his iconic 421 Chair, which is best known as the Diamond. Introduced by Knoll in 1952, this welded-steel, lattice-work chair remains a classic today. The royalties from the Diamond permitted Bertoia the freedom to produce his sculptures, which were neither signed nor marked. Today his son, Val Bertoia, continues to make sculpture, but in his own style. “Above all, he was inspired by natural forms,” says Val, who estimates that his father created 45,000 examples. Though Bertoia rarely named his sculpture, they fall into 17 major groups, including bush, dandelion, free-forms, gongs, straw, tonals and trees.