- When James Hampton was making the sculptural artwork that he called The Throne of the Third
Heaven of the Nations Millennium General Assembly, I don't think that he could have
imagined that his creation would one day count among the most important works at the Smithsonian,
let alone that it would one day impact the larger history of American art.
We really don't know a great deal about James Hampton.
He died before he finished The Throne or before anyone could ask him all of the questions that we
would want to today. But another reason that we know so little about him is because artists like
Hampton were almost always overlooked. It was generally believed that if you weren't educated
to be an artist or you weren't making things that were in step with the mainstream art world,
that your art didn't matter. And if you happened to be an untrained artist of color,
there was even less chance of being recognized as an artist of any value.
Hampton was born in 1909 in South Carolina,
and when he was 19, he followed his older brother north to live in Washington, DC.
Hampton was drafted into World War Two, and after the war, he returned to DC
and he worked nights as a janitor in a federal building until he died in 1964.
We think that Hampton began making small pieces of sculpture in the late 1930s,
but it was really in 1950 when he rented a workspace
just to accommodate this project, that what we think of as The Throne really began taking shape.
Overall, Hampton made about 180 components for The Throne.
There's a big, cushioned chair that sits at the rear center, and above that are the commanding
words, "FEAR NOT." From there it spans out symmetrically on either side,
one side being dedicated to the Old Testament and the other side being dedicated to
the New Testament of the Bible. And each piece is mirrored with a similar piece on the other side of it.
There are discarded pieces of furniture, chairs, little tables, there are vases,
light bulbs. He covered everything in metallic silver and gold foils
and a colored paper that was probably purple but has faded over time. When Hampton died, the owner
of the space that Hampton rented as a workshop, he discovered what Hampton had been working on.
He started bringing people to see it. Although the nature and full meaning of Hampton's efforts were
not well understood at the time he died, those who saw The Throne understood that it had been
a man's life's work, that it was important and worth understanding better.
The work was purchased and donated to SAAM and a large portion of the array went on view in 1970.
It rapidly became an audience favorite,
and it has rarely been off view since then.
I think it's important to consider the deeper implications of The Throne,
made by a Black man during the Civil Rights movement
in Washington, DC, which was a city with a large, thriving African American population.
But it was also very much a place in which white men put their power on display.
Hampton's masterpiece has become an enduring icon at SAAM.
It's very human scale, there are crowns that look like they would fit right on your head or
maybe that Hampton had worn.
It's glimmering and resplendent and really beautiful. And it's also just profoundly humble,
this amazing artwork that's made out of almost entirely
discarded things just carefully covered and adorned and put together with such care.
Hampton's project might be best understood as a testament. On a bulletin board in his workspace,
he pinned up one of his driving mottos, which was, "Where there is no vision, the people perish."