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By Gallerist Sandy Rupp:

“John Acorn is considered one the South’s most progressive 20th-century sculptors. In 1961, he received his MFA degree from Cranbrook Academy of Art. For 36 years, from 1961 to 1997), he was a professor of sculpture and basic design in the College of Architecture at Clemson University, South Carolina. Upon retirement, he became a Professor Emeritus. In 1998, he was honored with the Elizabeth O’Neill Verner Award, the “highest honor the state gives in the arts,” from the South Carolina Arts Commission. Teaching at one of the top ten colleges of Architecture in the nation, Acorn influenced artists and architects who now practice all over the US and abroad.”

Comments by John Acorn, taken from the catalog of his exhibition at the Greenville County Art Museum, 1999:

“I’ve always done artwork in series. And in doing piecs in series, one image suggests another. I am simply the person who gives them form, some kind of reality, some kind of material sense, so that I can share them with someone else. Once you start with something that interests you, it generates its own momentum; it kind of makes itself.

“I don’t look for ideas. People talk about going on the Internet and getting information. I have always thought that the information that interests me the most is the information that I am in contact with in just my daily routine. It is first-hand experience; it’s not second-hand information.

“I have stacks of news magazines, and when I am either tired or disinterested, I’ll sit down, zip through them, and if an image occurs that somehow rings a bell, kicks me in the head, such as the camouflage man suit, I’ll tear that page out. So, I have a stack of papers that are torn out that sit in cardboard boxes and, every once in awhile, I’ll look at them again.”

Click to image below to view John Acorn’s resume.