John Thompson Acorn (South Carolina, b. 1937), Camo Man as Figurine, Fragments #7

2001, cut wood with applied stain and steel sheeting, likely part of the artists ‘Camouflage Man' series, pencil signed and dated to the underside.

23 5/8 x 9 3/4 x 3 3/4 in.

From the Collection of Ron W. Djuren, Durham, North Carolina

Acorn was born in Paterson, New Jersey, and received his education at Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, where his major was sculpture, and his minor was weaving. In 1961 he was awarded his Master of Fine Arts degree.

While Acorn was at Cranbrook, Harlan McClure recruited him to join the newly established school of architecture at Clemson University. He began there in 1961, and remained until 1997, serving as head of the Department of Visual Arts. After securing a Fulbright Scholarship, Acorn did post-graduate study in sculpture with an emphasis in bronze casting at the Hochschule für Bildende Künst, West Berlin, Germany, where Henry Moore had some of his sculptures cast. Acorn also taught summer sessions at the Penland School of Craft, in Penland, North Carolina.

In his early work, Acorn tended to create large freestanding metal sculptures, many of which were installed as public sculptures in Greenville, South Carolina. He has explained his penchant for working in series: “I’ve always done artwork in series. And in doing pieces in series, one image suggests another. I am simply the person who gives them form, some kind of reality, some kind of material sense, so that I can share them with someone else.
Once you start with something that interests you, it generates its own momentum; it kind of makes itself.”

At times Acorn’s subject matter veers towards the political. The camouflage figures are human scale, headless, and covered in different surfaces that allude to such issues as race, religion, and ethnicity.

In 1975 the South Carolina Chapter granted Acorn the American Institute of Architects Award for Art-in-Architecture. In 1998 the Elizabeth O’Neill Verner Governor’s Award for the Arts (now Governor’s Award for the Arts), South Carolina’s most prestigious honor, was conferred on Acorn; it was given to an individual artist for commitment to developing the arts in the state. In 2018, he was inducted into the Clemson University College of Architecture, Arts and Humanities Hall of Fame for his dedication to enriching the experience of every individual at Clemson University.

Source:
The Johnson Collection, Spartanburg, South Carolina thejohnsoncollection.org

Good estate condition.