Val Bertoia (b. 1949)

Val Bertoia was born in Santa Monica, California in 1949 to the artist, Harry Bertoia and his wife, Brigitta Valentiner. The family relocated to Pennsylvania in the 1950s where Bertoia has lived and worked since. In the1960s, Bertoia attended the Indiana Institute of Technology in Fort Wayne, Indiana. After his release from the US Army in Fort Dix, NJ, Bertoia returned to Pennsylvania and began to work at Bertoia Studio with his father. Val worked extensively with his father from 1972 to 1978.

The two primarily worked on his father’s Sound Sculpture environment, trademarked “Sonambient”. Late in the 1970s, Harry and Val made Bertoia Sound Sculptures for large distribution. During this time, Val began to work on his own projects, in addition to his father’s.

After Harry Bertoia passed in 1978, Val Bertoia continued his father’s business and artistic practice with the encouragement of his mother. Val Bertoia sculptures made after November 1978, when Harry Bertoia died, are numbered, starting with B-01.