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With a prolific career spanning over fifty years, Claes Oldenburg has made a radical contribution to the history of sculpture by rethinking its materials, forms, and subject matter. This exhibition is devoted to Oldenburg’s soft sculptures, a body of work that he began developing in 1962.
Claes Oldenburg is an American sculptor, best known for his public art installations typically featuring very large replicas of everyday objects. Another theme in his work is soft sculpture versions of everyday objects. Many of his works were made in collaboration with his wife, Coosje van Bruggen, who died in 2009 after 32 years of marriage.
- American, Swedish
- January 28, 1929
- Stockholm, Sweden
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- Summary of Claes Oldenburg
- Accomplishments
- Biography of Claes Oldenburg
With his saggy hamburgers, colossal clothespins and giant three-way plugs, Claes Oldenburg has been the reigning king of Pop sculpture since the early 1960s, back when New York was still truly gritty. In 1961 he rented a storefront, called it The Store, and stocked it with stuffed, crudely-painted forms resembling diner food, cheap clothing, and ot...
Whereas Pop artists had imitated the flat language of billboards, magazines, television, etc., working in two-dimensional mediums, Oldenburg's three-dimensional papier maches, plaster models, and s...Oldenburg's objects, no matter how apparently insignificant in themselves, become expressive entities, almost like characters in a stage play. This is partly due to their dramatically outsized scal...The notion of enlarging a diminutive, everyday object and placing it in a landscape - an idea integral to Oldenburg's monumental public art - comes to us from the Surrealists such as Magritte, Dalí...Oldenburg's unconventionally squishy, rearrangable sculpture challenged the hard, vertical orientation that persisted through Abstract Expressionism. His was a true breakthrough in the history of s...Childhood and Education
The son of a diplomat, Oldenburg was born in Stockholm, Sweden in 1929 and settled with his family in Chicago in 1936. He and his younger brother, Richard, were educated at Yale and Harvard, respectively. Richard would later become the Director of the Museum of Modern Art in New York City for over two decades (1972-1995). After graduating from Yale in 1950, where he studied literature and art history as well as studio art, Oldenburg took a job with the City News Bureau of Chicago and also int...
Early Training
In 1953, Oldenburg became a naturalized citizen and moved to New York, committed to pursuing a career in art. According to the artist, the "most creative and stimulating" influence was the environment of the Lower East Side, where The Beats, Fluxus, and Pop art groups converged on performance and gallery spaces at Judson Memorial Church off Washington Square. Here, he got to know regulars such as Allan Kaprow, Yoko Ono, Robert Rauschenberg, Jasper Johns, Andy Warhol, and Jim Dine. Most everyo...
Mature Period
1960 was a breakthrough year for Oldenburg. The Yale graduate appeared (sans pants), covered in garbage, with Patty Mucha (whom he later married) in his piece Snapshots from the City, inspired by the neighborhood and staged at Judson Memorial Church. Inspired by the smorgasbord of sights and sounds in life and art in Lower Manhattan, he collaborated with Mucha on other performances, and produced his first soft sculptures. Traces of the rough-hewn, graffiti-like collages of Rauschenberg and an...
- American
- January 28, 1929
- Stockholm, Sweden
- July 18, 2022
artworks/17199. Giant BLT, among the earliest of Claes Oldenburg’s soft sculptures, joins other cafeteria edibles in his work, such as the painted plaster reliefs he produced for his 1961 environment The Store, or his soft treatments of hamburgers, ice cream cones, and French fries.
Claes Oldenburg (January 28, 1929 – July 18, 2022) was a Swedish-born American sculptor best known for his public art installations, typically featuring large replicas of everyday objects. Another theme in his work is soft sculpture versions of everyday objects.
- Sculpture
Mar 29, 2024 · Claes Oldenburg (born January 28, 1929, Stockholm, Sweden—died July 18, 2022, New York, New York, U.S.) was a Swedish-born American Pop-art sculptor, best known for his giant soft sculptures of everyday objects.
Early soft sculptures include Giant BLT (Bacon, Lettuce, and Tomato Sandwich) (1963), French Fries and Ketchup (1963), and Soft Toilet (1966). Monumental Sculptures. As he became increasingly immersed in sculpture, Oldenburg expanded the dimensions of his work.
