Sculpting the Corporate Image: Harry Bertoia and the Zenith Radio Corporation

In 1959, the artist and designer Harry Bertoia (1915-1978) created an illuminated welded metal installation entitled Sculpture Group Symbolizing the World’s Communication in the Atomic Age for the Zenith Radio Corporation’s new product showroom in Chicago. Made in close collaboration with the architect of the space, Alfred Shaw, the sculptural installation was designed to convey “an abstract concept of electronic communications,” according to a company press release. Clearly visible to passersby through a large display window, the sculpture was there not only to help sell the latest televisions and radios but also to shape the electronics manufacturer’s corporate image. The company supplied the language and context necessary to transform Bertoia’s abstract sculpture into an icon for their business interests. In the 1950s, Bertoia was on the vanguard of what we now might call "lobby art." His welded metal sculptures are compelling instances of ostensibly decorative objects that naturalized corporate images while obscuring the structural logic of corporate power. Taking the Zenith piece as a case study, this paper explores how Bertoia’s work was mobilized in the 1950s and 1960s to construct corporate images for publicity-minded businesses. I draw upon the critical framework of the interface to negotiate the relationship between material fact and perception—between object and image—that animated the interplay between artistic expression and corporate marketing.