Claes Oldenburg

Born in Sweden, but raised in Chicago, Claes Oldenburg became known as one of the most playful of the Pop artists of the 1960s. Noted for his bold use of color, unexpected materials, and monumental scale of everyday objects, Oldenburg’s works can be seen in public squares throughout the United States and Europe.

Oldenburg, like other Pop artists, rejected the serious, inward-looking philosophy of the Abstract Expressionist and turned their gaze to advertising, popular culture, and consumer goods to offer a humorous critique on contemporary life. After moving to New York in the late 1950s, the artist burst on the scene with his “soft sculptures”—replicas of everyday objects such as hamburgers, fans, and pies made from fabrics and other unconventional materials.

Staging these shows in galleries meant to look like stores. Oldenburg also became prominent in the “Happenings” movement, staging performances with Allen Kaprow, Jim Dine, and his first wife, Patty Mucha. At the time, Oldenburg asserted that theater was the highest form of art because it directly involved the audience.

By the mid-1960s, Oldenburg moved to Los Angeles and began creating works on paper that featured landscapes with large-scaled, quotidian items as features—teddy bears, lipsticks, or clothespins—loom over their settings. These drawings led to his first public sculpture, 1969’s Lipstick (Ascending) on Caterpillar Tracks, a monumental sculpture of a tube of red lipstick emerging from the gun turret of a tank. Placed on Yale University’s campus at the height of the Vietnam protests, this work attracted much controversy, but also solidified Oldenburg’s career as a public sculptor.

In 1977, the artist married his second wife and artistic partner, Coosje van Bruggen and the two collaborated on visual and theatrical arts until her death in 2009. Oldenburg continued to work until his death in 2022, collaborating on many exhibitions and retrospectives of his work throughout the 2010s.