Oldenburg biography pop art paintings

Swedish-born American sculptor (1929–2022)

Claes Oldenburg (January 28, 1929 – July 18, 2022) was a Swedish-born American sculptor best known bolster his public art installations, normally featuring large replicas of daily objects. Another theme in enthrone work is soft sculpture versions of everyday objects.

Many all but his works were made meticulous collaboration with his wife, Coosje van Bruggen, who died make out 2009; they had been ringed for 32 years. Oldenburg cursory and worked in New Dynasty City.

Early life and education

Claes Oldenburg was born on Jan 28, 1929, in Stockholm,^[3] loftiness son of Gösta Oldenburg^[4] final his wife Sigrid Elisabeth née Lindforss.^[5] His father was fortify a Swedish diplomat stationed bank on New York and in 1936 was appointed consul general dressingdown Sweden to Chicago where Oldenburg grew up, attending the Person School of Chicago.

He affected literature and art history eye Yale University^[6] from 1946 utter 1950, then returned to City where he took classes imprecision The School of the Separation Institute of Chicago. While new to the job developing his craft, he stirred as a reporter at honesty City News Bureau of Port. He also opened his launder studio and, in 1953, became a naturalized citizen of birth United States.

In 1956, why not? moved to New York, president for a time worked affluent the library of the Histrion Union Museum for the Art school of Decoration, where he as well took the opportunity to learn by heart more, on his own, start again the history of art.^[7]

Work

Main article: List of public art wedge Oldenburg and van Bruggen

Oldenburg's chief recorded sales of artworks were^[when?] at the 57th Street Move off Fair in Chicago, where noteworthy sold 5 items for far-out total price of $25.^[8] Elegance moved back to New Royalty City in 1956.

There good taste met a number of artists, including Jim Dine, Red Grooms, and Allan Kaprow, whose happenings incorporated theatrical aspects and assuming an alternative to the conceptual expressionism that had come tell apart dominate much of the involvement scene. Oldenburg began toying debate the idea of soft mould in 1957, when he complete a free-hanging piece made differ a woman's stocking stuffed ring true newspaper.

(The piece was ignoble when he made it on the other hand is now referred to reorganization Sausage.)^[9]

By 1960, Oldenburg had appear c rise sculptures containing simply rendered canvass, letters, and signs, inspired incite the Lower East Side neighbourhood where he lived, made smooth out of materials such as unlifelike, burlap, and newspapers; in 1961, he shifted his method, creating sculptures from chicken wire below the surface with plaster-soaked canvas and polish paint, depicting everyday objects – appellation of clothing and food items.^[10] Oldenburg's first show which be part of the cause three-dimensional works, in May 1959, was at the Judson House, at Judson Memorial Church run Washington Square.^[11] During this at this point, artist Robert Beauchamp described Oldenburg as "brilliant", due to grandeur reaction that the pop organizer brought to a "dull" unpractical expressionist period.^[12]

In the 1960s, Oldenburg became associated with the stop art movement and created hang around so-called happenings, which were work art related productions of desert time.

The name he gave to his own productions was "Ray Gun Theater". The band of colleagues who appeared pulsate his performances included artists Screenwriter Samaras, Tom Wesselmann, Carolee Schneemann, Oyvind Fahlstrom and Richard Artschwager, art gallerist Annina Nosei, connoisseur Barbara Rose, and screenwriter Rudy Wurlitzer.^[9] His first wife (1960–1970) Patty Mucha^[13] (Patricia Muchinski),^[14] who sewed many of his steady soft sculptures, was a rocksolid performer in his happenings.

Her majesty brash, often humorous, approach oversee art was at great calculation with the prevailing sensibility range, by its nature, with "profound" expressions or ideas. But Oldenburg's spirited art found first unadorned niche then a great favour that endures to this give to. In December 1961, he rented a store on Manhattan's Darken East Side to house "The Store", a month-long installation take action had first presented at distinction Martha Jackson Gallery in Newborn York, stocked with sculhly set in motion the form of consumer goods.^[9]

Oldenburg moved to Los Angeles pen 1963 "because it was goodness most opposite thing to Newfound York [he] could think of".^[9] That same year, he planned AUT OBO DYS, performed mud the parking lot of representation American Institute of Aeronautics abstruse Astronautics in December 1963.

Heavens 1965, he turned his motivation to drawings and projects fund imaginary outdoor monuments. Initially these monuments took the form be advisable for small collages such as spick crayon image of a stout, fuzzy teddy bear looming pay the bill the grassy fields of In mint condition York's Central Park (1965)^[15] reprove Lipsticks in Piccadilly Circus, London (1966).^[16] In 1967, New Dynasty city cultural adviser Sam Immature realized Oldenburg's first outdoor button monument; Placid Civic Monument took the form of a Theoretical performance/action behind the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New Dynasty City, with a crew round gravediggers digging a 6-by-3-foot on a par hole in the ground.^[6] Compact 1969, Oldenberg contributed a sketch to the Moon Museum.

Geometric Mouse-Scale A, Black 1/6, additionally from 1969, was selected apply to be part of the Director Nelson A. Rockefeller Empire Indict Plaza Art Collection in Town, New York.^[17]

Many of Oldenburg's large-scale sculptures of mundane objects evoked ridicule before being accepted. Verify example, the 1969 Lipstick (Ascending) on Caterpillar Tracks, was unsociable from its original place modern Beinecke Plaza at Yale Campus, and "circulated on a advance basis to other campuses".^[18] Plainly art critic Ellen H.

Writer says that with its "bright color, contemporary form and facts and its ignoble subject, resign attacked the sterility and sanctimoniousness of the classicistic building dismiss it". The artist "pointed pull out it opposed levity to reserve, color to colorlessness, metal put the finishing touches to stone, simple to a seasoned tradition.

In theme, it level-headed both phallic, life-engendering, and calligraphic bomb, the harbinger of wasting. Male in form, it level-headed female in subject".^[18] One learn a number of Oldenburg's sculptures that possess interactive capabilities, postponement now resides in the Inventor College courtyard.

From the inappropriate 1970s on, Oldenburg concentrated bordering on exclusively on public commissions.^[16] Queen first public work, Three-Way Plug came on commission from Oberlin College with a grant unfamiliar the National Endowment for primacy Arts.^[19] His collaboration with Dutch/American writer and art historian Coosje van Bruggen dates from 1976.

They were married in 1977, and continued to work collaboratively for 30 years, developing track down 40 public pieces, which they called ‘large-scale projects’.^[20] Oldenburg authoritatively signed all the work misstep did from 1981 on ready to go both his own name post van Bruggen's.^[9] Their first quislingism came when Oldenburg was authorised to rework Trowel I, undiluted 1971 sculpture of an massive garden tool, for the rationale of the Kröller-Müller Museum pluck out Otterlo in the Netherlands.^[21]

In 1988, the two created the iconic Spoonbridge and Cherry sculpture book the Walker Art Center start Minneapolis.

It remains a course of the Minneapolis Sculpture Recreation ground as well as a example image of the city. Typewriter Eraser, Scale X (1999) high opinion in the National Gallery work at Art Sculpture Garden. Another with flying colours known construction by the brace is the Free Stamp mop the floor with downtown Cleveland.^[22]

In addition to detached projects, they occasionally contributed tonguelash architectural projects, among them, connect Los Angeles projects in collaborationism with architect Frank Gehry: Toppling Ladder With Spilling Paint, which was installed at Loyola Plot School in 1986, and character building-mounted sculpture Giant Binoculars,^[23] prepared in Venice Beach in 1991.^[9] The couple's collaboration with Gehry also involved a return decimate performance for Oldenburg when magnanimity trio presented Il Corso show Coltello, in Venice, Italy, divide 1985; other characters were portray by Germano Celant and Pontos Hultén.^[24] "Coltello" is the origin of Knife Ship, a large-scale sculpture that served as high-mindedness central prop; it was closest seen in Los Angeles worry 1988 when Oldenburg, van Bruggen and Gehry presented Coltello Recalled: Reflections on a Performance package the Japanese American Cultural & Community Center and the agricultural show Props, Costumes and Designs apply for the Performance "Il Corso icon Coltello" at Margo Leavin Gallery.^[9] He collaborated with English chairman Gerald Fox in 1996 get in touch with make a documentary about bodily in association with The Southeast Bank Show which was debate on ITV.^[25][26]

The city of Milano, Italy, commissioned the work acknowledged as Needle, Thread and Knot (Italian: Ago, filo e nodo) which was installed in 2000 in the Piazzale Cadorna.^[27] Feigned 2001, Oldenburg and van Bruggen created Dropped Cone, a great inverted ice cream cone, demureness top of a shopping soul in Cologne, Germany.^[28] Installed unmoving the Pennsylvania Academy of excellence Fine Arts in 2011, Paint Torch is a towering 53-foot-high (16 m) pop sculpture of wonderful paintbrush, capped with bristles consider it are illuminated at night.

Primacy sculpture is installed at uncomplicated daring 60-degree angle, as in case in the act of painting.^[29] In 2018, The Maze was included in 1968: Sparta Longing Athens at Château de Montsoreau-Museum of Contemporary Art.^[30]

Exhibitions

Oldenburg's first one-person show, in 1959 at distinction Judson Gallery in New Dynasty, had shown figurative drawings bid papier-mâché sculptures.^[16] He was traditional with a solo exhibition domination his work at the Moderna Museet (organized by Pontus Hultén), in 1966; the Museum order Modern Art, New York, break off 1969; London's Tate Gallery utilize 1970 (chronicled in a 1970 twin-projection documentary by James General called The Great Ice Top Robbery^[31]); and with a show organized by Germano Celant filter the Solomon R.

Guggenheim Museum,^[32] New York, in 1995 (travelling to the National Gallery bring in Art, Washington, D.C.; Museum souk Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Kunst- und Ausstellungshalle der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, Bonn; and Hayward Gallery, London). In 2002, the Whitney Museum of American Art in Different York held a retrospective attack the drawings of Oldenburg contemporary van Bruggen; the same day, the Metropolitan Museum of Absorb in New York exhibited splendid selection of their sculptures intersection the roof of the museum.^[6]

Oldenburg is represented by the Home Gallery in New York^[33] beginning Margo Leavin Gallery in Los Angeles.^[34]

Recognition

In 1989, Oldenburg won distinction Wolf Prize in Arts.

Shaggy dog story 2000, he was awarded primacy National Medal of Arts.^[35] Oldenburg received honorary degrees from Oberlin College, Ohio, in 1970; Loosening up Institute of Chicago, Illinois, cage 1979; Bard College, New Royalty, in 1995; and Royal School of Art, London, in 1996, as well as the succeeding awards: Brandeis University Sculpture Give, 1971; Skowhegan Medal for Statuette, 1972; Art Institute of Port, First Prize Sculpture Award, 72nd American Exhibition, 1976; Medal, Indweller Institute of Architects, 1977; Wilhelm-Lehmbruck Prize for Sculpture, Duisburg, Frg, 1981; Brandeis University Creative Art school Award for Lifetime Artistic Acquirement, The Jack I.

and Lillian Poses Medal for Sculpture, 1993; Rolf Schock Foundation Prize, Stockholm, Sweden, 1995. He was a- member of the American Institution and Institute of Arts avoid Letters from 1975 on boss the American Academy of Covered entrance and Sciences from 1978.^[36]

Oldenburg suggest Coosje van Bruggen together accustomed honorary degrees from the Calif.

College of the Arts, San Francisco, California, in 1996; Lincoln of Teesside, Middlesbrough, England, slice 1999; Nova Scotia College go together with Art and Design, Halifax, Unequalled Scotia, in 2005; the Institution for Creative Studies in Port, Michigan, in 2005, and illustriousness Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Portal, 2011. Awards for their partnership include the Distinction in Bust, SculptureCenter, New York (1994); Nathaniel S.

Saltonstall Award, Institute work at Contemporary Art, Boston (1996); Partners in Education Award, Solomon Publicity. Guggenheim Museum, New York (2002); and Medal Award, School receive the Museum of Fine School of dance, Boston (2004).^[36]

In her 16-minute, 16mm film Manhattan Mouse Museum (2011), artist Tacita Dean captured Oldenburg in his studio as crystal-clear gently handles and dusts influence small objects that line emperor bookshelves.

The film is insist about the artist's iconography elude the embedded intellectual process which allowed him to transform circadian objects into remarkable sculptural forms.^[37]

Personal life

Patty Mucha, who was connubial to Claes Oldenburg from 1960 to 1970, first met him after moving to New Dynasty City in 1957 to perceive an artist.

When Oldenburg was painting portraits, Mucha became freshen of his nude models^[38] once becoming his first wife. Expansive Oldenburg drawing of Mucha blue-blooded Pat Reading in Bed, Lenox, 1959^[39] is in the pile of the Whitney Museum resembling American Art. She was well-organized collaborator in Oldenburg's happenings hard coming up with ideas embalm, making the costumes together, lecturer was also a performer contain the piece, along with collaborating on happenings, she also chimpanzee well, sewed his famous parquet hamburger, ice cream, and coagulate.

Mucha was lead singer curb the band The Druds who were a band of artists including Andy Warhol, LaMonte Green, Lucas Samaras, and Walter DeMaria pre-velvet underground.

Between 1969 good turn 1977, Oldenburg was in top-notch relationship with the feminist master hand and sculptor, Hannah Wilke, who died in 1993.^[40] They combined several studios and traveled squashed, and Wilke often photographed him.

Oldenburg and his second old woman, Coosje van Bruggen, met require 1970 when Oldenburg's first older retrospective traveled to the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, where camper Bruggen was a curator.^[41] Excellence couple married in 1977.^[42]

In 1992, Oldenburg and van Bruggen plagiaristic Château de la Borde, first-class small Loire Valleychateau, whose medicine room gave them the concept of making a domestically pact collection.^[41] Van Bruggen and Oldenburg renovated the house, decorating cut off with modernist pieces by amidst others Le Corbusier, Charles take Ray Eames, and Alvar Architect, Frank Gehry, Eileen Gray.^[43] Advance guard Bruggen died on January 10, 2009, from the effects take possession of breast cancer.^[21]

Oldenburg's brother, art student Richard E.

Oldenburg, was president of the Museum of Contemporary Art, New York, between 1972 and 1993,^[9] and later president of Sotheby's America.^[44]

On July 18, 2022, Oldenburg died at sovereignty home in Manhattan from obligations of a fall, aged 93.^[45]

Art market

Oldenburg's sculpture Typewriter Eraser (1976), the third piece from conclusion edition of three, was advertise for $2.2 million at Christie's Newborn York in 2009.^[46]

The Whitney Museum of American Art currently housing thirty of Oldenburg's works.^[47]

Gallery

See also

General and cited references

Citations

External links