John Chamberlain was born in Rochester, Indiana in 1927. He he both studied and taught sculpture at Black Mountain College in North Carolina in 1955 and 1956. In 1958, he began using scrap metal from automobiles in his work, and from 1959 and on, he focused on building sculptures consisting entirely of crushed car parts welded together.
In the early 1960s, Chamberlain’s work began to receive attention and critical acclaim. His first major solo show debuted at the Martha Jackson Gallery in New York in 1960, and shortly after, he started to become recognized as a three-dimensional Abstract Expressionist. His sculptures were exhibited at a number of galleries and museums, including the Museum of Modern Art in 1960 in their exhibition: The Art of Assemblage, the Leo Castelli Gallery in New York from 1962 and onwards, as well as the São Paulo Biennial in 1961 and Venice Biennale in 1964. During this time, Chamberlain started to experiment with other mediums and materials in addition to making sculptures with auto parts.
During his last ten years, Chamberlain started experimenting again with other mediums and materials, starting with large photographs printed on canvas, altered with digital visual effects. He also started to make larger versions of his miniature foil sculptures from the mid-1980s as well as new larger foil pieces in 2007. He also continued to create more sculptures using vintage automobiles. Chamberlain passed away on December 21, 2011, in New York; and a retrospective of his work, John Chamberlain: Choices, was presented from February 24–May 13, 2012 at the Guggenheim Museum.
