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Start Over Collection John McHale archive, 1950-1978

Aluminum Head, 1956 Box Cabinet L, Shelf 1, Item 5

Aluminum was a lightweight construction material increasingly used in the 1950s by architects. It is sometimes associated with the New Pragmaticist architecture being built in Britain in these years. McHale's 'head-collages' of the 1950s, although they bear a superficial resemblance to Paolozzi's works, have been better described as images of the 'media-fed man' (Robert Freeman) -- figures that are "defined by what they consume." This consumerist conception of collage differs somewhat from its predecessors.

  1. Yale University -Yale Center for British Art
  2. John McHale archive, 1950-1978
  3. Collages

Class of '59 : Magda Cordell, Eduardo Paolozzi, John McHale : paintings, sculpture, collages, 1959 Box 7, Item 38

Brochure for an exhibition at The Union, Cambridge, February 7-19, 1959. Arranged by the Cambridge Contemporary Art Trust. One side of the sheet serves as a small poster. The verso includes a checklist and a commentary by Lawrence Alloway.

  1. Yale University -Yale Center for British Art
  2. John McHale archive, 1950-1978
  3. Catalogs, periodicals, ephemera, and small posters

Collage Books

Much of McHale's works of the 1950s are devoted to (re)processing media information. There is a recurrent interest in the processing of information through communication systems (see McHale's lecture material). His collage books are best understood as efforts to enact/create such systems in a viewer-interactive form.

  1. Yale University -Yale Center for British Art
  2. John McHale archive, 1950-1978