John McHale (artist)
Encyclopedia
John McHale was an artist and sociologist. He was a founder member of the Institute of Contemporary Arts
, and a founder of the Independent Group
, which was a British movement that originated Pop Art
which grew out of a fascination with American mass culture and post-WWII technologies.
. Both versions agree that the term was in use in Independent Group
discussions by mid 1955.
The critic Reyner Banham
called John McHale the "scholar-artist, this 'Father of Pop'". Alloway in his Artforum
article on "Pop art Since 1949" notes that "with reference to pop art that could be demonstrated […] John McHale made collage
s in 1955 out of the then-fresh postwar color printed American magazines." McHale's works included fine arts, graphics, exhibition design, television, film and general consultancy to organisations in the US and Europe. He exhibited widely in Europe from 1950.He started as a Constructivism
artist and then transitioned into his Pop art
and proto Op art
. With fellow members of the Independent Group, Richard Hamilton
, Reyner Banham and Lawrence Alloway
he organised the Growth and Form exhibition in 1951, inspired by the work of the scientist D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson
. Although it received no financial support from the government or the Festival Office it had an agenda which was close to the official exhibitions of the Festival of Britain
. McHale with Alloway curated a Collages and Objects exhibit at the ICA in 1954, where McHale first exhibited his formative Pop Art collages including the Transistor series, and his interactive gaming collage Why I Took To The Washers In Luxury Flats. McHale was awarded a scholarship to study with Josef Albers
at the Design Department of Yale University
in August 1955, and returned to London in June 1956. John McHale participated in the 1956 exhibition This Is Tomorrow
at the Whitechapel Art Gallery, where he supplied a good deal of the Pop Art visual material. (Projectors, gramophone motors, film posters and probably the juke box were supplied by Frank Cordell
) Jeremy Hunt states in his article on 'This Is Tomorrow' that the exhibition Pop Art poster Just What Is It that Makes Today's Homes So Different, So Appealing?
is attributed to "Richard Hamilton based on a design by McHale." According to Magda Cordell
, "the material in that collage came from John McHale's files."
Design Faculty. In the 1960s he was an Associate with Buckminster Fuller
in the World Resources Inventory and in the World Design Science Decade Centre at Southern Illinois University Carbondale
where he co-authored a number of the reports. http://www.architecture.auckland.ac.nz/common/library/1995/11/i4/THEHTML/keynotes/wigley/front.htm
, the New York Academy of Sciences
, and the American Geographical Society
. He was awarded the Medaille d' Honneur en Vermeil, Society d' Encouragement au Progres in 1966 and the Knight Commanander's Cross of the Order of St. Denis in 1974. McHale was a member of the American Sociological Association
, Institute of Ecology, Society for the Advancement of General Systems Theory, a member of the Colorado Archaeological Society, a member of the World Futures Studies Federation
, and a founding member of the Futures Advisory Board.
Institute of Contemporary Arts
The Institute of Contemporary Arts is an artistic and cultural centre on The Mall in London, just off Trafalgar Square. It is located within Nash House, part of Carlton House Terrace, near the Duke of York Steps and Admiralty Arch...
, and a founder of the Independent Group
Independent Group
The Independent Group met at the Institute of Contemporary Arts London from 1952-55. The IG consisted of painters, sculptors, architects, writers and critics who wanted to challenge prevailing modernist approaches to culture. They introduced mass culture into debates about high culture,...
, which was a British movement that originated Pop Art
Pop art
Pop art is an art movement that emerged in the mid 1950s in Britain and in the late 1950s in the United States. Pop art challenged tradition by asserting that an artist's use of the mass-produced visual commodities of popular culture is contiguous with the perspective of fine art...
which grew out of a fascination with American mass culture and post-WWII technologies.
Pop art
According to McHale's son, the term Pop Art was first coined by his father in 1954 in conversation with Frank Cordell, although other sources credit its origin to the British critic Lawrence AllowayLawrence Alloway
Lawrence Alloway was an English art critic and curator who worked in the United States from the 1960s. In the 1950s he was a leading member of the Independent Group in the UK and in the 1960s was an influential writer and curator in the US...
. Both versions agree that the term was in use in Independent Group
Independent Group
The Independent Group met at the Institute of Contemporary Arts London from 1952-55. The IG consisted of painters, sculptors, architects, writers and critics who wanted to challenge prevailing modernist approaches to culture. They introduced mass culture into debates about high culture,...
discussions by mid 1955.
The critic Reyner Banham
Reyner Banham
Peter Reyner Banham was a prolific architectural critic and writer best known for his 1960 theoretical treatise Theory and Design in the First Machine Age and for his 1971 book Los Angeles: The Architecture of Four Ecologies...
called John McHale the "scholar-artist, this 'Father of Pop'". Alloway in his Artforum
Artforum
Artforum is an international monthly magazine specializing in contemporary art.-Publication:The magazine is published ten times a year, September through May, along with an annual summer issue...
article on "Pop art Since 1949" notes that "with reference to pop art that could be demonstrated […] John McHale made collage
Collage
A collage is a work of formal art, primarily in the visual arts, made from an assemblage of different forms, thus creating a new whole....
s in 1955 out of the then-fresh postwar color printed American magazines." McHale's works included fine arts, graphics, exhibition design, television, film and general consultancy to organisations in the US and Europe. He exhibited widely in Europe from 1950.He started as a Constructivism
Constructivism (art)
Constructivism was an artistic and architectural philosophy that originated in Russia beginning in 1919, which was a rejection of the idea of autonomous art. The movement was in favour of art as a practice for social purposes. Constructivism had a great effect on modern art movements of the 20th...
artist and then transitioned into his Pop art
Pop art
Pop art is an art movement that emerged in the mid 1950s in Britain and in the late 1950s in the United States. Pop art challenged tradition by asserting that an artist's use of the mass-produced visual commodities of popular culture is contiguous with the perspective of fine art...
and proto Op art
Op art
Op art, also known as optical art, is a style of visual art that makes use of optical illusions."Optical art is a method of painting concerning the interaction between illusion and picture plane, between understanding and seeing." Op art works are abstract, with many of the better known pieces made...
. With fellow members of the Independent Group, Richard Hamilton
Richard Hamilton (artist)
Richard William Hamilton, CH was a British painter and collage artist. His 1956 collage, Just what is it that makes today's homes so different, so appealing?, produced for the This Is Tomorrow exhibition of the Independent Group in London, is considered by critics and historians to be one of the...
, Reyner Banham and Lawrence Alloway
Lawrence Alloway
Lawrence Alloway was an English art critic and curator who worked in the United States from the 1960s. In the 1950s he was a leading member of the Independent Group in the UK and in the 1960s was an influential writer and curator in the US...
he organised the Growth and Form exhibition in 1951, inspired by the work of the scientist D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson
D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson
Sir D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson CB FRS FRSE was a Scottish biologist, mathematician, and classics scholar. A pioneering mathematical biologist, he is mainly remembered as the author of the 1917 book On Growth and Form, written largely in Dundee in 1915...
. Although it received no financial support from the government or the Festival Office it had an agenda which was close to the official exhibitions of the Festival of Britain
Festival of Britain
The Festival of Britain was a national exhibition in Britain in the summer of 1951. It was organised by the government to give Britons a feeling of recovery in the aftermath of war and to promote good quality design in the rebuilding of British towns and cities. The Festival's centrepiece was in...
. McHale with Alloway curated a Collages and Objects exhibit at the ICA in 1954, where McHale first exhibited his formative Pop Art collages including the Transistor series, and his interactive gaming collage Why I Took To The Washers In Luxury Flats. McHale was awarded a scholarship to study with Josef Albers
Josef Albers
Josef Albers was a German-born American artist and educator whose work, both in Europe and in the United States, formed the basis of some of the most influential and far-reaching art education programs of the 20th century....
at the Design Department of Yale University
Yale University
Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...
in August 1955, and returned to London in June 1956. John McHale participated in the 1956 exhibition This Is Tomorrow
This is Tomorrow
This Is Tomorrow was a seminal art exhibition in August 1956 at the Whitechapel Art Gallery, facilitated by curator Bryan Robertson. The core of the exhibition was the ICA Independent Group.-History:...
at the Whitechapel Art Gallery, where he supplied a good deal of the Pop Art visual material. (Projectors, gramophone motors, film posters and probably the juke box were supplied by Frank Cordell
Frank Cordell (musician)
Frank Cordell was a British music composer, arranger and conductor, who was actively involved with the Institute of Contemporary Arts. He also wrote music under the name Frank Meilleur or Meillear .-Early life:He was born Frank Cordell in Kingston-upon-Thames...
) Jeremy Hunt states in his article on 'This Is Tomorrow' that the exhibition Pop Art poster Just What Is It that Makes Today's Homes So Different, So Appealing?
Just What Is It that Makes Today's Homes So Different, So Appealing?
Just what is it that makes today's homes so different, so appealing? is a collage by English artist Richard Hamilton. It measures × . The work is now in the collection of the Kunsthalle Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany...
is attributed to "Richard Hamilton based on a design by McHale." According to Magda Cordell
Magda Cordell McHale
Magda Cordell McHale was an artist, futurist, and educator. She was a founding member of the Independent Group which was a British movement that originated Pop Art which grew out of a fascination with American mass culture and post-WWII technologies...
, "the material in that collage came from John McHale's files."
Published work
Born in Scotland, McHale was educated in the United Kingdom and the United States of America, with a PhD in Sociology. McHale published extensively in Europe and the US on the impact of technology and culture, mass communications and the future. His numerous articles include "Gropius and the Bauhaus" in Art (1955), "Josef Albers" and "Buckminster Fuller" in Architectural Review (1956), "The Expendable Ikon #1, #2" in Architectural Design (1959),"The Fine Arts and Mass Media" in Cambridge Opinion (17)(1959), "The Plastic Parthenon" in Macatre (1966) and "2000+" in Architectural Design (1967), "Telefutures: Prospective Observations" in The New Television: A Public/Private Art, MOMA (1977),"The Future of Art and Mass Culture", Leonardo, (Vol.12, No.1, Winter,1979, pp59–64),"The Future and Function of Art", ART News Feb 1973,pp24–28. His books include The Future of the Future published by Braziller in 1968, The Ecological Context, also by Braziller, in 1970, World Facts and Trends published by Collier-MacMillan in 1972, and The Changing Information Environment published by Westview Press in 1972. McHale was a member of the Southern Illinois UniversitySouthern Illinois University
Southern Illinois University is a state university system based in Carbondale, Illinois, in the Southern Illinois region of the state, with multiple campuses...
Design Faculty. In the 1960s he was an Associate with Buckminster Fuller
Buckminster Fuller
Richard Buckminster “Bucky” Fuller was an American systems theorist, author, designer, inventor, futurist and second president of Mensa International, the high IQ society....
in the World Resources Inventory and in the World Design Science Decade Centre at Southern Illinois University Carbondale
Southern Illinois University Carbondale
Southern Illinois University Carbondale is a public research university located in Carbondale, Illinois, United States. Founded in 1869, SIUC is the flagship campus of the Southern Illinois University system...
where he co-authored a number of the reports. http://www.architecture.auckland.ac.nz/common/library/1995/11/i4/THEHTML/keynotes/wigley/front.htm
Honors
McHale was a Fellow (and Secretary-General) of the World Academy of Sciences, the Royal Society of ArtsRoyal Society of Arts
The Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufacturers and Commerce is a British multi-disciplinary institution, based in London. The name Royal Society of Arts is frequently used for brevity...
, the New York Academy of Sciences
New York Academy of Sciences
The New York Academy of Sciences is the third oldest scientific society in the United States. An independent, non-profit organization with more than members in 140 countries, the Academy’s mission is to advance understanding of science and technology...
, and the American Geographical Society
American Geographical Society
The American Geographical Society is an organization of professional geographers, founded in 1851 in New York City. Most fellows of the society are Americans, but among them have always been a significant number of fellows from around the world...
. He was awarded the Medaille d' Honneur en Vermeil, Society d' Encouragement au Progres in 1966 and the Knight Commanander's Cross of the Order of St. Denis in 1974. McHale was a member of the American Sociological Association
American Sociological Association
The American Sociological Association , founded in 1905 as the American Sociological Society , is a non-profit organization dedicated to advancing the discipline and profession of sociology by serving sociologists in their work and promoting their contributions to serve society.The ASA holds its...
, Institute of Ecology, Society for the Advancement of General Systems Theory, a member of the Colorado Archaeological Society, a member of the World Futures Studies Federation
World Futures Studies Federation
The World Futures Studies Federation is a global non-governmental organization that was founded in 1973 to promote the development of futures studies as an academic discipline.- History :...
, and a founding member of the Futures Advisory Board.