John Chamberlain
1927-2011
John Chamberlain was born in 1927 in Rochester, Indiana. He grew up in Chicago and, after serving in the navy from 1943 to 1946, attended the Art Institute of Chicago from 1950 to 1952. At that time, he began making welded steel sculptures influenced by the work of David Smith. In 1955 and 1956, Chamberlain studied and taught sculpture at Black Mountain College, near Asheville, North Carolina, where most of his friends were poets, including Robert Creeley, Robert Duncan, and Charles Olson. By 1958, he began to incorporate scrap metal from cars in his work, and from 1959 on he concentrated on sculpture built entirely of crushed automobile parts welded together. Chamberlain's first major solo show was presented at the Martha Jackson Gallery, New York, in 1960. Chamberlain's work achieved critical acclaim in the early 1960s, gaining him a reputation as a three-dimensional Abstract Expressionist. His sculpture was included in The Art of Assemblage at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, in 1961, the same year he participated in the São Paulo Biennial. From 1962, Chamberlain showed frequently at the Leo Castelli Gallery, New York, and in 1964 his work was exhibited at the Venice Bienn…
Films