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Auction Name: 2025 November 19 Modern & Contemporary Art Signature® Auction

Lot Number: 77046

Shortcut to Lot: HA.com/8228*77046

John Chamberlain (1927-2011)
Tonk #2-86, 1986
Painted and chromium-plated steel
11 x 10 x 5 inches (27.9 x 25.4 x 12.7 cm)
Signed and dated along edge: Chamberlain '86

Private Collection, Dallas

PROVENANCE:
Xavier Fourcade, Inc., New York;
Private collection, Dallas, Texas, acquired from the above, 1986.

The "Tonk" sculptures of 1986 belong to John Chamberlain's later experiments in small-scale, tightly composed welded-metal assemblages. In this series he continues his longstanding practice of repurposing metal elements, but here with a more condensed, compact energy.
The title "Tonk" is not merely fanciful or decorative - it points directly to the material source and the artist's mode of appropriation. In the early 1980's Chamberlain acquired the contents and scrap parts from an abandoned Tonka Toy factory. From these toy trucks and toy-vehicle components, he constructed a new body of small, intimate, and compact sculptures - contrasting with his monumental automobile-scrap sculptures.


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