James Hampton (April 8, 1909–November 4, 1964) was a janitor who secretly built a large assemblage of religious art from scavenged materials and is considered an outsider artist.[1]
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James Hampton was born in Elloree, South Carolina, in 1909. His father was a gospel singer and a traveling Baptist preacher. In 1928, Hampton left for Washington, D.C., to join his elder brother Lee. They shared an apartment. James Hampton worked as a short-order cook until 1942 when he was drafted into United States Army Air Forces. He served as a carpenter with the noncombatant 385th Aviation Squadron around the Pacific theatre. He was honorably discharged in 1945 and returned to Washington, D.C.
In 1946, Hampton became a night janitor with the General Services Administration. His brother Lee died in 1948.
In 1950, he rented a garage in northwest Washington. A month after Hampton's death, Meyer Wertlieb, owner of the garage, 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 many symmetrical, glittering objects surrounding a central throne.
For 14 years, Hampton had been building a throne out of various old materials like aluminum and gold foil, old furniture, various pieces of cardboard, old light bulbs, shards of mirror and old desk blotters. He had pinned it together with tacks, glue, pins and tape.
It is unknown whether Hampton considered himself an artist. Hampton's work would be an example of folk or naïve art — art made by people who are self-taught, who have not studied art techniques, art history, or art theory.[2]
The text The Throne of the Third Heaven of the Nations' Millennium General Assembly was written on the objects in Hampton's handwriting. He had emblazoned the words Fear Not above the central throne. The complete work (what is in the Smithsonian American Art Museum's permanent collection) consists of a total of 180 objects. Many of them were inscribed with words out of the biblical Book of Revelation. The objects on the right side of the central throne seem to refer to the New Testament and those on the left side to the Old Testament.[3]
Hampton had also kept a 112-page notebook, titled St James: The Book of the 7 Dispensation, written in his personal code. He referred to himself as St. James and ended each page with the word "Revelation". He had written more text on various pieces of paper and cardboard. Some of them refer to religious visions. Hampton's personal code remains unsolved.
In Hampton's writing he kept the title "Director, Special Projects for the State of Eternity".
The story became public in the December 15, 1964, issue of the Washington Post. Hampton had kept his project secret from most of his friend and family; his relatives first heard about it when his sister came to claim his body.
The Throne was an anonymous gift to the Smithsonian American Art Museum in 1970.
Hampton died of stomach cancer on November 4, 1964, at the Veteran's Hospital in Washington, D.C. He never married.
"The Throne of the Third Heaven," Toby Thompson, The Washington Post Magazine (August, 1981), pp. 26-31, 36-37.