John Byam first worked in the railways before serving in the United States Army during the Korean War. Returning to the United States in 1952, he moved in with his mother and stepfather, helping them run a campground. For a time, he worked as a gravedigger. From the 1970s onward, he began drawing, but above all sculpted everyday objects from ordinary wood, to which he added a mixture of sawdust and glue. His work could be seen as part of a rural tradition widespread in the United States, but its deeply original and poetic quality stems from his vision of these objects, which follows his imagination more than any desire to reproduce reality. He now lives in social housing in the state of New York.