{"data":{"id":"247","type":"artist","attributes":{"id":247,"topgoose_id":2543,"tms_id":247,"display_name":"John Chamberlain","sort_name":"Chamberlain John","display_date":"1927–2011","begin_date":"1927","end_date":"2011","biography":"\u003cp\u003eJohn Chamberlain is best known for the colorful sculptures he made beginning in the late 1950s from found automobile parts that he crushed and welded into compelling new forms. As a result of this practice and its unique use of color and form, his sculptures are routinely associated with the gestural work of Abstract Expressionist artists such as \u003ca href=\"/artists/707\"\u003eFranz Kline\u003c/a\u003e and \u003ca href=\"/artists/339\"\u003eWillem de Kooning\u003c/a\u003e. While Chamberlain’s career is undoubtedly anchored within this painterly context, his work is distinguished through its use of found material and the detritus of the everyday—a practice that flourished in the 1960s and 1970s as part of a movement known as Assemblage. As Chamberlain explained, “The early colored sculptures came about when I ran out of iron rod . . . [and] it occurred to me one day that all this material was just lying all over the place.”\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eDespite their cultural associations, Chamberlain selected car parts for their preexisting forms, emphasizing that “a common material with a preformed mythic content shakes off its origins through formal transformation.” \u003ca href=\"/collection/works/377\"\u003e\u003cem\u003eVelvet White\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/a\u003e comprises two segments of white metal compressed together and lacks his signature use of vibrant color. As such, the sculpture underscores Chamberlain’s interest in materiality and the physicality of the body. Here, the work becomes almost anthropomorphic, suggesting the head and body of a figure, shrouded in white.\u003c/p\u003e","on_view":false,"artport":false,"biennial":true,"collection":true,"ulan_id":"500118724","wikidata_id":"Q468760","created_at":"2017-08-30T17:27:00.000-04:00","updated_at":"2026-03-30T07:03:56.234-04:00","links":{"artworks":"/api/artists/247/artworks","exhibitions":"/api/artists/247/exhibitions"}}}}