John Chamberlain (1927-2011) was born in Rochester, Indiana. He attended the Art Institute of Chicago (1951-52) and Black Mountain College (1955-56) and moved to New York in 1956.

His work is represented in many major public collections including Chinati Foundation, Marfa, Texas; Menil Collection, Houston; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Museum Ludwig, Cologne; and Tate Modern, London. He has had two retrospectives, both at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, in 1971 and in 2011.

Chamberlain has been the subject of more than one hundred one-person exhibitions, including those at the Dia Art Foundation (1983); Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (1986); Staatlich Kunsthalle Baden-Baden (1991); Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam (1996); Chinati Foundation, Marfa, Texas (2005-06); and the Menil Collection, Houston (2009).

His work has been included in numerous international survey exhibitions, including Bienal de São Paulo (1961, 1994), Biennale di Venezia (1964), Whitney Biennial (1973, 1987), and Documenta 7 (1982). This is the second temporary installation of the artist's work on the Seagram Building plaza; the monumental American Tableau was created for display on the plaza in 1984.