Claes Oldenburg

(American, 1929–2022)

Claes Oldenburg is a Swedish-born American sculptor known for his innovative and humorous reconstructions of everyday objects in both large-scale public installations and soft materials. Along with Tom Wesselmann, Jasper Johns, and Allan Kaprow, Oldenburg is associated with the Pop Art movement. “Because my work is naturally non-meaningful, the meaning found in it will remain doubtful and inconsistent—which is the way it should be,” he explained of his work. “All that I care about is that, like any startling piece of nature, it should be capable of stimulating meaning.” Born on January 28, 1929 in Stockholm, Sweden, his family moved to America in 1936. Oldenburg went on to study at Yale University before working at the City News Bureau in Chicago and attending the Art Institute of Chicago before moving to New York in 1953. His early shows featured objects assembled with images, papier mâché, and plaster. In 1957, Oldenburg created his first “soft sculpture,” Sausage, a free-hanging woman's stocking stuffed with newspaper. Thereafter, his work began to increase in scale, beginning with The Store (1961), an immersive installation created within a rented storefront in the Lower East Side where the artist sold food and store goods recast as plaster sculptures. By the 1970s, Oldenburg focused his attention on monumental outdoor public sculpture of everyday objects, going to create Free Stamp in Cleveland and Clothespin in Philadelphia. Oldenburg often collaborated with his wife, the artist Coosje van Bruggen, until her death in 2009. The artist continues to live and work in New York, NY. Today, his works are included in the collections of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., the Tate Gallery in London, and the Kunstmuseum Basel, among others.