Fear Not!

The inscription on James Hampton'sThe Throne of the Third Heaven of the Nations Millennium General Assembly, a work of prophecy that foresees the dawn of a new age, tells us to face the future without fear.

In 1964 . . . James Hampton, a black veteran who worked as a janitor cleaning government buildings for the General Services Administration in Washington, D. C. . . . died, leaving a rented garage full of handmade ecclesiastical objects. Altars, bishop's chairs, offertory tables, crowns, plaques of scripture, and lecterns fashioned from cast-off furniture all covered with silver and gold foil, were found behind the garage doors—the private lifework of a soft-spoken man who would probably never have described himself as an artist, though in his writings he sometimes referred to himself as "St. James."

Source: William Kloss. Treasures from the National Museum of American Art. (Washington, D.C. and London: National Museum of American Art with the Smithsonian Institution Press, 1985).

Pictured: James Hampton (1909–64), The Throne of the Third Heaven of the Nations Millennium General Assembly,about 1950–64, gold and silver aluminum foil, Kraft paper, and plastic over wood furniture, paperboard, and glass, 10 x 27 x 14 ft., Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of anonymous donors.