John Chamberlain American, 1929-2011
John Chamberlain attended the Art Institute of Chicago and Black Mountain College where he studied poetry and sculpture during the early to mid-1950s. He is deemed one of the most prominent three-dimensional Abstract Expressionists of the twentieth century. Chamberlain is renowned for his metal sculptures, constructed from discarded automobile-body parts and other industrial debris that he began creating in the late 1950s. Reminiscent of the consumerist characteristic Pop Art, but also distinctive tenets of Minimalism and Process Art. Chamberlain oeuvre was inspired by his time spent in the US Navy as a seaman (first class) during World War Two, specifically his time spent on aircraft carrier. In 1966 and 1977 Chamberlain received the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship. He also represented the United States at La Biennale di Venezia in 1964 and was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award in Contemporary Sculpture from the International Sculpture Center in Hamilton in 1993. Chamberlain’s work is included in numerous international public collections, including the Dallas Museum of Art in Dallas, The Detroit Institute of Arts in Detroit, Moderna Museet in Stockholm, Museum Ludwig in Cologne, The Museum of Modern Art in New York, Tate Gallery in London, and Whitney Museum of American Art in New York.