Lot Essay
'My vertical pieces always have that sense of Rodin's Balzac about them. You know, like someone who's proud...always standing up' (J. Chamberlain, quoted by H. Geldzahler, John Chamberlain, exh. cat, New York, 1992, n.p.).
According to the artist, Isabella was a tall blond woman who sang all night in a junkyard in the town of Aix-en-Provence in France. The vertical, undulating contours of Isabella's Line gives the sculpture both a melodious and a distinctly human-like quality, with the folds of colored metal suggesting the pleats of an elegant evening dress.
Since the mid 1970s John Chamberlain had been purchasing car metal for his sculptures directly from the manufacturer: pre-molded, multi-colored and ready for use. Using these new materials gives Isabella's Line a coloristic vivacity that many of his earlier works lack.
'These started as pictures on the wall, and as the pictures developed, they sort of went this way and that way, and then they came down and hit the floor, and then they came up again. That's the natural progression...You can't do the same thing all the time because that's what you already know. The idea is to find out what you don't know' (quoted in J. Sylvester, John Chamberlain: A Catalogue Raisonn of the Sculpture 1954-1985, New York, 1986, p. 24).
According to the artist, Isabella was a tall blond woman who sang all night in a junkyard in the town of Aix-en-Provence in France. The vertical, undulating contours of Isabella's Line gives the sculpture both a melodious and a distinctly human-like quality, with the folds of colored metal suggesting the pleats of an elegant evening dress.
Since the mid 1970s John Chamberlain had been purchasing car metal for his sculptures directly from the manufacturer: pre-molded, multi-colored and ready for use. Using these new materials gives Isabella's Line a coloristic vivacity that many of his earlier works lack.
'These started as pictures on the wall, and as the pictures developed, they sort of went this way and that way, and then they came down and hit the floor, and then they came up again. That's the natural progression...You can't do the same thing all the time because that's what you already know. The idea is to find out what you don't know' (quoted in J. Sylvester, John Chamberlain: A Catalogue Raisonn of the Sculpture 1954-1985, New York, 1986, p. 24).