1975.69 Dancing Duke

Although John Chamberlain was always willing to employ anything steel and painted in his work (a bench, signs, a lunch box, kitchen appliances, etc.), his signature source was steel used to make the mass-produced commodity cars. He first began creating automotive sculptures in 1957, when he stripped a 1929 Ford and gathered similar material at a nearby junkyard. From that point forward, automobile parts provided Chamberlain with ready-painted sheet steel parts which had to interlock successfully before he welded them into place. Rather than an allusion to violent collisions, Chamberlain's primary interest was in the colors and shapes of the car parts, and the poetics and processes of making art. 

Until 1975: John Chamberlain (b. 1927-2011)

1975: Joseph Collection, St. Louis, Missouri, purchased through Ronald Greenberg Gallery, St. Louis, Missouri [1]

1975: Dallas Museum of Fine Arts, gift from above [2]

Notes:

The main source for this provenance is the object record card in the Collections Records object file (1975.69). Exceptions and supporting documentation are noted.

[1] See the copy of the document John Chamberlain Catalogue Raisonne in the Collections Records object file (1975.69).

[2] The name of the Dallas Museum of Fine Arts, founded in 1933, was changed to the Dallas Museum of Art in 1983.

Apply to objects where number equals 1975.69