[2] After spending a year at Yale University in 1955–1956, he moved definitively to the US in 1962 to work with the architect Buckminster Fuller on ecological issues and environmental sustainability.
According to McHale's son, the term Pop Art was first coined by his father in 1954 in conversation with Frank Cordell,[1] although other sources credit its origin to the British critic Lawrence Alloway.
With fellow members of the Independent Group, Richard Hamilton, Reyner Banham and Lawrence Alloway he organised the Growth and Form exhibition in 1951, inspired by the work of the scientist D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson.
[7][8] John McHale was awarded a scholarship to study with Josef Albers at the Design Department of Yale University in August 1955, and returned to London in June 1956.
He was awarded the Medaille d'Honneur en Vermeil, Society d' Encouragement au Progrès in 1966 and the Knight Commander's Cross of the Order of St. Denis in 1974.