Conserving Harry Bertoia's Sculpture Group Symbolizing World's
Communication in the Atomic Age Ever wonder how museums prepare
an artwork for exhibition? View our slide show for a sneak peek,
as our conservators ready a monumental sculpture and light show
for display. In storage since about 1983, Harry Bertoia's
Sculpture Group Symbolizing World's Communication in the Atomic
Age is an especially fitting artwork to view online! Specially
lighted, each brass unit conveys an abstract conception of
electronics communication, with the main unit transmitting
impulses of light to the others. Bertoia created this work in
1959 for the electronics company Zenith. He said, "We live in a
time dominated by these invisible forces. It is, in a sense,
these elements of the atomic and electronic age, that I am
trying to give sculptural shape and form." Harry Bertoia's
Sculpture Group Symbolizing World's Communication in the Atomic
Age Cleaning and treating what Objects Conservator Helen Ingalls
affectionately calls a "huge, h