John Chamberlain
1927–2011
John 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 Franz Kline and Willem de Kooning. 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.”
Despite 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.” Velvet White 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.
Introduction
John Angus Chamberlain (April 16, 1927 – December 21, 2011), was an American sculptor and filmmaker. At the time of his death he resided and worked on Shelter Island, New York.
Wikidata identifier
Q468760
Information from Wikipedia, made available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License . Accessed April 29, 2025.
Introduction
Chamberlain is known for his large abstract sculptures fashioned out of scrapped metal from automobile bodies.
Country of birth
United States
Roles
Artist, assemblage artist, cinematographer, graphic artist, painter, photographer, sculptor
ULAN identifier
500118724
Names
John Chamberlain, John A. Chamberlain, John Angus Chamberlain
Information from the Getty Research Institute's Union List of Artist Names ® (ULAN), made available under the ODC Attribution License. Accessed April 29, 2025.
