The Saint Louis Art Museum unveils its celebration of the city's contribution to Modern architecture and design this weekend. St. Louis Modern (8 November-10 January 2016) features the city’s landmark Gateway Arch, of course, telling the saga of getting Eero Saarinen’s great parabola in stainless steel erected on the banks of the Mississippi. But somewhere—believed buried in a landfill site—is a masterwork by Harry Bertoia that used to grace the city’s airport. Bertoia’s sculptural screen measured 48-feet-long and featured colourful geometric forms that created a rhythmic pattern. It acted as a dividing screen between the Kitty Hawk Restaurant and the rest of the terminal from 1956 when it was unveiled until the late 1960s when it was removed. At some point during a regrettable rehab and expansion of the Minoru Yamasaki-designed terminal, Bertoia's screen disappeared. “Despite numerous attempts to locate the remants, their whereabouts remain unknown,” the curators lament in the show's accompanying catalogue, which features on its cover a maquette of the lost work. (The model, at least, is in the safe keeping of the museum.) Hopefully the exhibition will encourage someone with information to come forward.
