Grand Island's public library has been added to an exclusive group.

It now possesses one of three original sculptures by the internationally famous sculptor Harry Bertoia, according to Roberta Lawrey, head librarian.

Two other Bertoia sculptures are on permanent display at Joslyn Art Gallery in Omaha and the Sheldon Art Gallery in Lincoln, she said.

The statue was donated from memorials and family contributions in honor of Col. William 0. Peak, Mrs. Bernice Peak and Barbara Peak, who were found dead in their Hidden Lake Home in 1972, and Mrs. M. H. Allen, who died in 1974. Mrs. Peak was Mrs. Alien's daughter.

The check for the statue was presented recently to Jim Wenger, library board president, by M. H. Allen.

Bertoia was born March 10, San Lorenzo, Italy, and immigrated to America with his father when he was 15.

He enrolled in the special program for talented students in the arts and sciences and at Cass Technical High School in Detroit, Mich. Bertoia became one of their most notable students upon graduation In 1936.

He won a scholarship to the Art School of the Detroit Society of Arts and Crafts and the next year earned a scholarship for his metalcrafts which sent him to Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield.

In 1939, Bertoia was asked to start a metalworking department at the academy although he was a student in painting and drawing.

Since the war made most metals scarce commodities, Bertoia became an expert at working with silver - the only metal not as difficult to obtain.

He developed a method producing color prints by using ink woodblocks and sent them to the Guggenheim Foundation Museum of Non-Objective Painting in New York, NY, and they purchased the 100 prints.

Of these, 19 were exhibited in New York in 1943, which began his exhibition career. Bertoia became a U.S. citizen in 1946 and went to work for Knoll Associates, Inc., a furniture design firm, and moved to Bally, Pa.

Miss Lawrey pointed out that the Bertoia chair in the library's reading area has been on the market since 1952.

The chair is made of a web of wires welded into a diamond shape and bent to conform to the body, she said. Since 1953, however, Bertoia has only been a consultant to Knoll and no longer designs furniture.

His main interest has been sculpting and from the beginning his sculptures were constructions In metal using rods and wire to define space and support abstract shapes usually cut out of flat sheets of enameling steel. He uses an acetylene torch for cutting and melting other metals which he sculpts to the forms and rods to achieve, textured surface.

"One prevailing characteristic of sculpture is the interplay of void and matter, the void being of equal value to the component material units," Bertoia has said.

Bertoia sculpts in four major theme areas - studies in light and space; studies of the sound and motion produced by a sculpture when it is touched by something; the arrangements of points in space. which appear to form contour lines where there is not actual physical surface, and his concept of interior space" which involves an expression of a dark and restful inner place unrelated to the outside which serves as a sanctuary.

His works come in all shapes and sizes but the larger ones which can't be shown in museums, such as the fountain sculpture in front of the Philadelphia, Pa., civic center, are equally as impressive as the smaller works.

His work has been represented in traveling shows for the Museum of Modern Art and the American. Federation of Arts and has been shown world-wide. The sculptures are never signed and seldom named by the artist.