Martha Jackson Gallery, New York (acquired from the artist in 1960)
Acquired by the present owner by exchange with the above in 1963

New York, Martha Jackson Gallery, New Forms - New Media I, June 1960
New York, New Forms - New Media II, September 1960, cat. no. 14, illustrated
New York, Allan Stone Gallery, Mallary, Chamberlain, Cesar, Anderson, October 1963
Cleveland, The Cleveland Museum of Art, Sculpture by John Chamberlain, January 1967
New York, The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, John Chamberlain: A Retrospective Exhibition, December 1971 - February 1972, cat. no. 6, p. 25, illustrated
New York, Allan Stone Gallery, John Chamberlain: Early Works, October - November 2003, cat. no. 20, illustrated in color twice, illustrated in color on the cover (detail) and p. 3, illustrated (installation photograph from the 1963 exhibition at Allan Stone Gallery)
Chapel Hill, Ackland Art Museum, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Circa 1958: Breaking Ground in American Art, September 2008 - January 2009, cat. no. 5, p. 31, illustrated in color

John D. Morse, "He Returns to Dada," Art in America, vol. 48, no. 3, October 1960, p. 76, illustrated
Emily Genauer, "Art and the Artist," New York Post, January 9, 1972, illustrated
Julie Sylvester, John Chamberlain: A Catalogue Raisonné of the Sculpture 1954 - 1985, New York, 1986, cat. no. 21, p. 47, illustrated

This sculpture is in excellent condition. Please contact the Contemporary Art Department at 212-606-7254 for a condition report prepared by Wilson Conservation.
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John Chamberlain's crushed metal structures have long been recognized as a significant contribution to sculpture in the 20th century and Nutcracker from 1958 is one of the earliest sculptures in which the found object gained primacy in his work. From 1954 to 1957, Chamberlain had worked primarily in the more traditional welded steel or iron, and Nutcracker marks the moment where he began to manipulate derelict appliances and automobile parts into his own forms with simplicity and grandeur. By adding the third dimension and brighter colors to the spontaneity of the Abstract Expressionist painters, Chamberlain liberated sculpture from the tradition of cast metal or sculpted stone. Allan Stone was a tireless supporter and collector of Chamberlain's work and responded to the energy and grittiness of Chamberlain's inventive expressionism. The wonderfully compressed Nutcracker clearly moved him – he acqඣuired it in 1963 and it remained in his collection until now.

Similar to the New York School painters, Chamberlain never envisioned the end result at the beginning of a work. However, he alone among artists of the time brought this intuitive practice to sculpture. The Abstract Expressionist school's interest in the physicality of paint and brushstroke was embraced by Chamberlain in his hands-on manipulation of metal forms into new shapes. Chamberlain combined different parts of automobiles or other machine scrap parts in an additive process where the endpoint bore no resemblance to the original object. In Nutcracker, Chamberlain's use of volume and color invites the viewer to circumnavigate the sculpture when observing it. The worn finish and bold colors of the present work— yellow, blue, and cherry red— showcase the crushed edges and open voids of the work. The rigorous devotion to altering the very form of his materials ensures the viewer a complicated visual experience. The overriding sense of action tempts us to inform the work with a narrative, and the juxtaposition of hard lines and swollen curves anthropomorphize an otherwise absolutely industrial-looking artifact. On a primal level, Nutcracker conveys a transfiguration with its gleaming chrome swoops implying a human invention foiled—both literally and figuratively. Although on initial viewing, one is tempted to read the activated surface in terms of violence, Chamberlain contradicts this facile interpretation. In interviews with Julie Sylvester during the early 1980s, Chamberlain commented on the early reactions to his sculptures, "I don't know why people think that my work is about violence. [Claes Oldenburg] got it and they didn't. He understood that there is a softness in the steel material, especially in the steel that covers a car." (Julie Sylvester, John Chamberlain: A Catalogue Raisonné of the Sculpture, 1954-1985, New York, 1986, p. 15)

Chamberlain first turned to color-coated steel as a matter of practicality, when he found himself short of the materials he had been using.  As he recalled, "I was looking for the next way to go. This was in 1957 or 1958. Then all of a sudden, it occurred to me one day that all this material was just lying all over the place." Beginning with a fender and parts from an antique 1929 Ford at Larry River's house, Chamberlain procured scraps from body shops and other people's detritus. "In the early sculptures, I used anything made of steel that had color on it. There were metal benches, metal signs, sand pails, lunch boxes, stuff like that. ....I wasn't interested in the car parts per se, I was interested in either the color or the shape or the amount." (Ibid., p. 15)   In the years following the execution of Nutcracker, Chamberlain would elaborate his process and enhance the found properties of his objects by spraying multiple coats of automotive lacquer on the elements to give them a luscious, exaggerated visual effect. But in the initial sculptures such as Nutcracker, one can revel in the raw and elemental nature of these momentous works, and appreciate Chamberlain's singular focus on the form and composition as primary over a set color palette. Diane Waldman noted, "Chamberlain was able to take advantage of a readymade situation which the automobile offered to circumvent the persistent problem posed by polychrome sculpture – that color appears to be an additive rather than an inherent feature of the work." (Exh. Cat., New York, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, John Chamberlain: A Retrospective Exhibition, 1971, p. 9).

Although his process may appear haphazard, Chamberlain's sculptures possess a clear unity and Nutcracker is a particularly cohesive and well-balanced masterwork of his formative period. Chamberlain's crushed assemblages of automotive steel have secured him a place in art history and in nearly every major museum collection. These works share a gestural vigor and visceral quality with the paintings of the late 1950s that were also collected by Allan Stone and other admirers of the Abstract Expressionists. In the world of sculpture, Chamberlain is celebrated for the introduction of non-traditional materials, for an unprecedented sculptural process of clustering and folding metal, and for the bold inclusion of color. Chamberlain's uncanny ability to humanize cold mass-produced machine parts is wrought with contradictions and complexities. Nutcracker and other slightly later sculptures from the early years of the 1960s are intimate and accessible inv𒆙itations to the viewer to engage with Ch🐎amberlain's process.