John Chamberlain (sculptor)
| John Chamberlain | |
|---|---|
S, metal, 1959, in the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden
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| Born |
April 16, 1927 Rochester, Indiana |
| Died | December 21, 2011 (aged 84) Manhattan, New York City, NY |
| Nationality | American |
| Education | Art Institute of Chicago, Black Mountain College |
| Known for | Sculpture |
| Notable work |
in museums: |
| Movement | Abstract Expressionism, Neo-Dada |
in museums:
John Angus Chamberlain (April 16, 1927 – December 21, 2011) was an American sculptor. At the time of his death he resided and worked on Shelter Island, New York.
Born in Rochester, Indiana as the son of a saloonkeeper, Chamberlain was raised mostly by his grandmother after his parents divorced. He spent much of his youth in Chicago. After serving in the U.S Navy from 1943 to 1946, he attended the Art Institute of Chicago (1951–52) and Black Mountain College (1955–56). At Black Mountain, he studied with the poets Charles Olsen, Robert Creeley, and Robert Duncan, who were teaching there that semester. The following year, he moved to New York, where for the first time he created sculpture that included scrap-metal auto parts. Over the course of his prolific career, he had studios in New York, New Mexico, Florida, Connecticut, and finally Shelter Island.
Chamberlain is best known for creating sculptures from old automobiles (or parts of) that bring the Abstract Expressionist style of painting into three dimensions. He began by carving and modelling, but turned to working in metal in 1952 and welding 1953. By 1957, while staying with the painter Larry Rivers in Southampton, New York, he began to include scrap metal from cars with his sculpture Shortstop, and from 1959 onward he concentrated on sculpture built entirely of crushed automobile parts welded together. Far more than just another wrinkle on assemblage Shortstop and subsequent works completely reinvented modeling casting, and volume altering Marcel Duchamp's notion of the readymade and using the car as both medium and tool. In 1962 Donald Judd wrote, "The only reason Chamberlain is not the best American sculptor under forty is the incommensurability of 'the best' which makes it arbitrary to say so."
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