Pistoletto wqs born in 1933 in Biella, Italy, but his family moved one year later to the city of Turin. Both of his parents were involved with painting; his mother was a painter and his father was a painting restorer. Pistoletto began working as an apprentice to his father in 1947 at the age of 14 and continued until 1958. During this time Pistoletto created self-portrait in which his face filled the entire canvas. Then, in rsponse to an exhibition of paintings by Francis Bacon he saw in 1958, he began to work with the full figure--often himself. However, quite unlike Bacon, Pistoletto suppressed movement and expression in his works.

By the time of his first one-person exhibition in 1960 Pistoletto had reduced the backgrounds of his paintings to blank areas of metallic paint. When he noticed his reflection in one of the paintings a year later, Pistoletto decided to make the painting surface a mirror and began to work on stainles steel. Afterwards, he no longer portrayed himself in the image, since he was present in th reflection. Pistoletto's figures are created on paper, them adhered to the stainless steel. At first he painted in monochrome, but later used hand-colored, photo-screenprints derived from candid snapshots

Beginning is 1964 Pistoletto became involved with performance art, creating installations with rags as the settings. He also created sculptures from rags. In 1980 Pistoletto's wotk changed considerably and he began to make large sculptures carved from polyturathane and marble.

Despite the diversity in his career, Pistoletto has always been known best for his early mirror works, of which Man with Chamberlain Sculpture is an important example.After seeing the American pavilion at the Venice Biennale of 1964, he bagan a series of works in response to art from that exhibition. Man with Chamberlain Sculpture is a part of this series. By 1979 Pistoletto's mirror works evolved into full-scale installations.

Source: News, November/December, 1992.