Lot Essay
John Chamberlain's Coasters is an original work from a relatively small series of paintings made between 1963 and 1965, each titled after popular Rock and Roll bands. These works were painstakingly created by the artist by spraying up to fifty layers of low saturation, translucent hues of automobile lacquer with metal flake onto masonite. This slow and deliberate process allowed Chamberlain to produce an alluring and lush surface that pays homage to both Bauhaus design and classic minimalism in its symmetrical design and repetition of form. "I was interested in an accumulation of layers of paint, an accumulation to make color" (Robert Creeley, John Chamberlain, Papier Paradisio, Drawings, Collages, Reliefs, Paintings," exh. cat, Kunstmuseum Winterthur, Germany, 2005, p.17).
These paintings may have been an escape for Chamberlain, an attempt to create a work that is tethered to his sculpture conceptually but distant aesthetically, something the critics could not immediately relate to car crashes and death. Coasters is a prime example of John Chamberlain's best paintings and reveal a softer side of the artist that is often concealed.
These paintings may have been an escape for Chamberlain, an attempt to create a work that is tethered to his sculpture conceptually but distant aesthetically, something the critics could not immediately relate to car crashes and death. Coasters is a prime example of John Chamberlain's best paintings and reveal a softer side of the artist that is often concealed.