PETER DECAMP HAINES
“I am a maker of objects, and the object itself is the main idea in my sculpture.”
‒ Peter DeCamp Haines
Peter DeCamp Haines (1942–2024) had an interest in psychology and anthropology which deeply informed his art. Working in a Modernist tradition, his career pursued a continuing exploration of the formal attributes of sculpture: form, scale, negative space, and composition. As Haines saw it, one of the satisfactions of sculpture is that ideas such as wholeness, beauty, and timelessness can be expressed without words and one of the critical elements of this wordless communication is negative space. Thus, the doorways, windows, and silhouettes of his sculptures can suggest an area larger than the sculpture itself.
Haines grew up in Ohio; he was awarded a bachelor of arts degree from the University of Colorado–Boulder, a master of business administration from Harvard University, and was a graduate of the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. He was a founding member of the Boston Sculptors Gallery and co-founder of the Vermont Gentlemen’s Foundry. His work has been shown in numerous solo and group exhibitions, and can be found in the DeCordova Museum and Sculpture Park in Concord, Massachusetts, and the Chen Yunxian Museum in Nanchang, China, among other collections in Boston, New York, and South Korea. Haines lived and worked in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
