Margaret Wharton was an American artist, known for her sculptures of deconstructed chairs. She deconstructed, reconstructed and reimagined everyday objects to make works of art that could be whimsical, witty or simply thought-provoking in reflecting her vision of the world. A longtime Chicago-based artist, Wharton had a prolific and celebrated career. Her work is included in a number of national museums and collections, and she has had lasting impact on multiple generations of artists. She died in her house at the age of 70 on January 20, 2014, in Riverside because of 'complications related to chronic obstructive pulmonary disease'.
Biography
Margaret Wharton was born in Portsmouth, Virginia in 1943. She received a degree from the University of Maryland in College Park and worked briefly in advertising before marrying and moving to Bethlehem, Pennsylvania were her husband began working to Bethlehem Steel. After starting a family Wharton became interesting in working with steel. She took her first welding course at Moravian College in 1967. She took classes at the School of the Art Institute, graduating with a B.F.A. in 1975 in sculpture. Her work uses a lot of found objects and figurative references. Wharton is also influential for her part in founding Artemesia Gallery, Chicago’s first all-female art gallery in 1972 with artists including Hollis Sigler, Phyllis Bramson, Vera Klement, Carole Harmel and Claire Prussian. Wharton’s first love was welding, though she did remarkable works in wood, repurposed objects and non-art materials. Chairs feature prominently in her work.
Works
Wharton's first solo exhibition took place at the Phyllis Kind Gallery in Chicago in 1976. She had eleven more solo shows at the Kind Galleries in Chicago and New York City between 1977 and 1991. In 1981-82 another solo exhibition by Wharton, sponsored by the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, traveled to Texas, Florida, and South Carolina. This exhibition was reviewed in Artforum in January 1982. Her work has been invited to many group exhibitions in the United States and the United Kingdom. Wharton won the Anna Louise Raymond award in the "Fellowship Show" at the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Logan Prize in the "Chicago and Vicinity Show" at the same institution. She completed commissions for the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, and the Chicago Public Library, West Lawn Branch. Wharton also has been awarded grants from the National Endowment for the Arts. Her work is in major private and permanent collections, including the Art Institute of Chicago and the Museum of Contemporary Art, both in Chicago; the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, DC; the Dallas Museum, Texas; the Madison Art Center, Wisconsin; Seattle Art Museum, Washington; and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York City.
