And I heard, as it were, the noise of thunder
One of the four beasts saying,
‘Come and see.’ and I saw….
— Revelation 6:1-17 (KJV)
It’s likely that – even if you’re familiar with the canon of Western art history – you’re unaware of the work of James Hampton (1909 – 1964).
Granted, he was an outsider artist and his reticent secrecy about his art is perhaps only matched by his dedication to his magnum opus : I speak of his breathtaking installation The Throne of the Third Heaven of the Nations’ Millennium General Assembly, which Hampton worked on from 1950 until his death in 1964.
From The Smithsonian American Art Museum (which has this work in its collection, and where notably it has been on continuous display due to public acclaim) :
“Hampton created his masterpiece in a rented carriage house, transforming its drab interior into a resplendent world. He hand-crafted many of the elements from cardboard and plastic, but added structure with found objects from his neighborhood, such as old furniture and jelly jars, and discards like light bulbs from the federal office buildings in which he worked. Hampton selected shimmering metallic foils, purple paper (now faded to tan), and other materials to evoke spiritual awe and splendor. The Throne embodies a complex fusion of Christianity and African-American spiritual practices overlaying themes of deliverance and freedom; it is both astonishingly splendid and profoundly humble.”
And more, from here: “The art was not discovered until after Hampton’s death in 1964, when the owner of the garage, Meyer Wertlieb, came to find out why the rent had not been paid. He knew that Hampton had been building something in the garage. When he opened the door, he found a room filled with the artwork.”
I was reminded of this work recently by a fellow curator, but I also became aware of it while researching the work of Jacob Lawrence and considering the excluding vagaries of art history.
Along those same lines, I recently read the YA novel The Seven Most Important Things by Shelley Pearsall that is a fictional narrative about both Hampton and his life’s work. It’s also necessary to cite the artistic monstrosity (I say this in the most positive sense) that is The House on the Rock – these creations that artists feel compelled to create, that offer awe and joy.
A short video about Hampton’s artwork can be enjoyed here. Like many sculptural installations, a video is more in tune with an appropriate – even fittingly reverential – experience of the work.
The art critic and art historian Robert Hughes (whose book Nothing If Not Critical is required reading) wrote that the Throne “may well be the finest work of visionary religious art produced by an American.”
I fluctuate between atheism and agnosticism but Hampton’s art offers that sense of transcendance that is often found in works like Diego Rivera’s Detroit Murals or even Barnett Newman’s Voice of Fire. These are labours of love and devotion and vision that are fine encapsulations of someone’s life and work.
Amusingly – for those who know my feelings about religion – I’ll end with a reference to a song by The Mountain Goats named Matthew 25 : 21. The cited verse is “His lord said unto him, Well done, thou good and faithful servant…” The aforementioned novel by Pearsall – which is more a fictional tale of redemption about a boy who becomes Hampton’s initially reluctant but soon devoted assistant in the building of The Throne of the Third Heaven of the Nations’ Millennium General Assembly – also touches upon grief and a desire for meaning in a harsh world.
The image below is Hampton, with his artwork, but the exact date and photographer are unknown.
Hampton was creating Throne while Alma Thomas was breaking boundaries, with both of them living in a heavily segregated United States and when Martin Luther King and Malcolm X were still alive (I am compelled to inject Bob Marley’s lament about ‘how long shall they kill our prophets while we stand aside and look?’) and is both art history and a wider social history.
Below are a series of details of the work.
More about Hampton and his life’s work can be found here.