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Lot Essay
'McHale's human images arise from what they incorporate. He symbolises the proposition of social psychology, that there is no core of human nature, given and absolute, only what environment selects from the bundle of potentials which is a human being. McHale's folk are 'cultural products,' as we are'.
(L. Alloway, exhibition catalogue, Class of `59 paintings, sculpture, collages: Magda Cordell, Eduardo Paolozzi, John McHale, Cambridge, Contemporary Art Trust, February 1959)
In 1955 John McHale visited the United States to study at Yale University with Josef Albers. He returned to England with an extensive collection of US magazines which he was to use in his subsequent assemblages and collages. This same collection is believed to have been the source material for Richard Hamilton's Just What is it that Makes Today's Homes so Different, so Appealing? that was used to promote the now seminal Whitechapel Show This is Tomorrow in 1956.
John McHale and Lawrence Alloway were the driving forces behind the Independent Group who met and debated at the ICA during the 1950s. Discussing the nature of modern culture, technology and mass communication, they formulated ideas surrounding the relevance of art within this new age and how it would not only reflect but also shape these new cultural orders. Working with artists such as Richard Hamilton, Eduardo Paolozzi and Nigel Henderson, McHale created an iconography based in mechanical mass production with a human optimism at its core.
(L. Alloway, exhibition catalogue, Class of `59 paintings, sculpture, collages: Magda Cordell, Eduardo Paolozzi, John McHale, Cambridge, Contemporary Art Trust, February 1959)
In 1955 John McHale visited the United States to study at Yale University with Josef Albers. He returned to England with an extensive collection of US magazines which he was to use in his subsequent assemblages and collages. This same collection is believed to have been the source material for Richard Hamilton's Just What is it that Makes Today's Homes so Different, so Appealing? that was used to promote the now seminal Whitechapel Show This is Tomorrow in 1956.
John McHale and Lawrence Alloway were the driving forces behind the Independent Group who met and debated at the ICA during the 1950s. Discussing the nature of modern culture, technology and mass communication, they formulated ideas surrounding the relevance of art within this new age and how it would not only reflect but also shape these new cultural orders. Working with artists such as Richard Hamilton, Eduardo Paolozzi and Nigel Henderson, McHale created an iconography based in mechanical mass production with a human optimism at its core.