James Hampton (April 8, 1909 – November 4, 1964) was an American outsider artist. Hampton worked as a janitor and secretly built a large assemblage of religious art from scavenged materials, known as The Throne of the Third Heaven of the Nations' Millennium General Assembly. Often abbreviated to simply The Throne, it is currently on display at the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington.
Early life
James Hampton was born in 1909 in Elloree, South Carolina. His father, who had abandoned the family, was a gospel singer and a traveling Baptist preacher who was also a known criminal who had worked on chain gangs. He was awarded the Bronze Star and was honorably discharged in 1945, after which he returned to Washington.
Throne of the Third Heaven of the Nations' Millennium General Assembly
thumb|Throne of the Third Heaven of the Nations' Millennium General Assembly in the [[Smithsonian American Art Museum]]
In 1950, Hampton rented a garage on 7th street in northwest Washington. Over the next 14 years, Hampton built a complex work of religious art inside the garage with various scavenged materials such as aluminum and gold foil, old furniture, pieces of cardboard, light bulbs, jelly jars, shards of mirror and desk blotters held together with tacks, glue, pins and tape.
The complete work consists of 180 objects, many of them inscribed with quotes from the Book of Revelation. The centerpiece of the exhibit is a throne, seven feet tall, built on the foundation of an old maroon-cushioned armchair with the words "Fear Not" at its crest. The throne is flanked by dozens of altars, crowns, lecterns, tablets and winged pulpits. Wall plaques on the left bear the name of apostles and those on the right list various biblical patriarchs and prophets such as Abraham and Ezekiel. The text The Throne of the Third Heaven of the Nations' Millennium General Assembly was written on the objects in Hampton's handwriting.
Hampton described his work as a monument to Jesus in Washington. The term "third heaven" is based on scriptures that refer to it as the "heaven of heavens" or God's realm. The work also has an affiliation with African-American yard shows as well as altars used in African-derived New World religions such as Vodou, Santería and Candomblé. Art critic Robert Farris Thompson describes The Throne as "a unique fusion of biblical and Afro-American traditional imagery." The text is available online and has been the subject of research.
Hampton altered the seventh dispensation so that he became not only the author of The Book of the 7 Dispensation but also a prophetic counselor of the Millennium. Hampton recorded "the Old and the New Covenant" and a second set of commandments, which Hampton believed God had given to him to pass along because man no longer followed the original Ten Commandments. Hampton had also written texts, some of which refer to religious visions, on various pieces of paper and cardboard and on a few pages in each of seven other notebooks. Tacked to a bulletin board in a corner of the garage was a quotation from Proverbs 29, "Where there is no vision, the people perish." Hampton hoped to develop a storefront ministry but never achieved that goal.
Hampton was somewhat reclusive. He had few close friends and spent most of his personal time working on his shrine. Hampton attended various churches in Washington but never joined a particular congregation because of his belief that the proliferation of denominations contradicted the oneness of God. He expressed an interest in finding a "holy woman" to assist with his life's work but never married.
It is unknown whether Hampton considered himself an artist. Hampton's work is an example of outsider or naïve art – art made by people who are self-taught, who have not studied art techniques, art history or art theory.
Death and discovery of the display
Hampton died of stomach cancer on November 4, 1964, at the Veteran's Hospital in Washington.
The art was not discovered until after Hampton's death in 1964, when the owner of the garage, Meyer Wertlieb, came to find out why the rent had not been paid. He knew that Hampton had been building something in the garage. When he opened the door, he found a room filled with the artwork.
Hampton had kept his project secret from most of his friends and family. His relatives first heard about it when his sister came to claim his body. When Hampton's sister refused to take the artwork, the landlord placed an advertisement in local newspapers. Ed Kelly, a sculptor, answered the advertisement and was so astounded by the exhibit, he contacted art collector Alice Denney. Denney brought art dealers Leo Castelli and Ivan Karp, and artist Robert Rauschenberg, to see the exhibit in the garage.
In popular culture
Author and poet Denis Johnson published a book with the name The Throne of the Third Heaven of the Nations Millennium General Assembly: Poems Collected and New, which includes a poem named after Hampton's work.
In 2007, composer Jefferson Friedman premiered a musical piece inspired by Hampton's artwork titled "The Throne of the Third Heaven," commissioned jointly by the National Symphony Orchestra and the ASCAP Foundation.
In 2015, author Shelley Pearsall published a young adult novel, The Seventh Most Important Thing, which put the artwork and the artist in a fictional context, imagining a meeting between Hampton and a troubled thirteen-year-old boy. The author says she was inspired by the fact that "for more than a decade, Hampton had labored alone, without fanfare, to create art for art's sake – a nearly impossible concept to grasp in today's world of rampant social-media sharing and instant celebrity."
In 2018, Cheyenne/Arapaho author Tommy Orange published a short story, "The State," that references Hampton and The Throne of the Third Heaven of the Nations' Millennium General Assembly. The story was an excerpted chapter from Orange's 2018 novel There There.