Scope and Contents
The collection comprises collage books, collages, drawings, palettes, and posters by John McHale, with related printed material, including catalogs, periodicals, ephemera, and small posters. The collage books include McHale's Why I Took to the Washers in Luxury Flats and his Shoe-Life Stories, both completed ca. 1954. The collages series includes McHale's Transistor (1954), Aluminum Head (1956) and Untitled (Head) (1977). The drawings series 14 drawings of geometric or abstract design and several studies for Aluminum Head. Among the printed material are posters and literature concerning exhibitions of work by John McHale or related exhibitions at the Institute for Contemporary Arts.
Dates
- ca. 1950-1978.
Creator
- McHale, John
- Del Renzio, Toni
- Hamilton, Richard, 1922-2011
- Henderson, Nigel, 1917-1985
- Katayama, Toshihiro, 1928-
- Independent Group (Association : Great Britain)
- Institute of Contemporary Arts (London, England)
Conditions Governing Access
The materials are open for research.
Conditions Governing Use
The collection is the physical property of the Yale Center for British Art. Literary rights, including copyright, also belong to the Yale Center for British Art. For further information, consult the Curator of Rare Books and Manuscripts.
Immediate Source of Acquisition
Yale Center for British Art, Gift of Magda Cordell McHale
Extent
25 Linear Feet (7 boxes)
Language of Materials
English
Catalog Record
A record for this collection is available in Orbis, the Yale University Library catalog
Persistent URL
Abstract
The collection comprises collage books, collages, drawings, palettes, and posters by John McHale, with related printed material, including catalogs, periodicals, ephemera, and small posters.
Biographical / Historical
John McHale (1922-1978) was a British collage artist, art theorist, and sociologist. As a member of the Independent Group, formed at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in 1952, McHale helped to originate Pop Art in Britain, a movement rooted in American mass culture and modern technology.
McHale spent a year at Yale University in 1955-1956 and returned permanently to the US in 1962 to work with Richard Buckminster Fuller on ecological issues and environmental sustainability. With his wife, the artist Magda Cordell, McHale founded the Center for Integrative Studies (CIS) to consider the impact of modern industrialized world on human society and the environment.
In a 1984 retrospective of McHale’s work, Charlotta Kotik wrote: “The unique oeuvre of John McHale results from both his special creative talents and his exceptional human qualities. John McHale was at once a visual artist, writer, educator and organizer; but most important, he was a humanist philosopher endowed with relentless energy to pursue innovations which were ultimately to result in changes beneficial to mankind. He looked toward the future with a mixture of optimism and skepticism, but above all with a great deal of realistic wisdom, making possible a clear formulation of our predicament, and the consequences of our behavior well in advance of the mainstream.” (The Expendable Ikon, p. 9).
Bibliography
- The Independent Group: postwar Britain and the aesthetics of plenty. Edited by David Robbins. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, c1990
- McHale, John. The expendable ikon. Buffalo, NY: Albright-Knox Art Gallery, 1984
- Abstract art
- Alloway, Lawrence, 1926-1990
- Art, Modern -- 20th Century
- Art, Modern -- 20th century -- Exhibitions
- Collage -- 20th century
- Collage -- 20th century -- Exhibitions
- Collage books
- Collages (visual works)
- Dot zero
- Drawings (visual works)
- Dubuffet, Jean, 1901-1985
- Ephemera
- Exhibition catalogs
- Independent Group (Association : Great Britain)
- Information theory
- Institute of Contemporary Arts (London, England)
- Irwin, Gwyther, 1931-2008
- Lady Clare magazine
- McHale, John
- McHale, John. Aluminum head.
- McHale, John. Shoe-life stories
- McHale, John. Transistor
- McHale, John. Why I took to the washers in luxury flats
- McHale, Magda Cordell
- Mesens, E. L. T., 1903-1971 (Edouard Léon Théodore)
- Meyer, E. W.
- Paolozzi, Eduardo, 1924-2005
- Periodicals
- Photographs
- Pop art
- Pop art -- Exhibitions
- Posters
- Probabilities
- Sketchbooks
- Tear sheets
- This Is Tomorrow (1956 : Whitechapel Art Gallery)
- Whitechapel Art Gallery
- Title
- Guide to the John McHale archive
- Status
- Completed
- Author
- compiled by Francis Lapka
- Date
- November 2019
- Description rules
- Describing Archives: A Content Standard
- Language of description note
- Finding aid written in English.
Part of the Yale Center for British Art, Rare Books and Manuscripts Repository
Department of Rare Books and Manuscripts
1080 Chapel Street
P. O. Box 208280
New Haven CT 06520-8280 US
203-432-2814
ycba.rarebooks@yale.edu
Location
1080 Chapel Street
New Haven , CT 06510