Claes Oldenburg

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Claes Oldenburg
Oldenburg in 2012
Born(1929-01-28)January 28, 1929
Stockholm, Sweden
DiedJuly 18, 2022(2022-07-18) (aged 93)
New York City, U.S.
Nationality
  • Swedish
  • American (from 1953)
Education
Known forSculpture
Notable workList of public art by Oldenburg and van Bruggen
Movement
Spouses
Patty Mucha
​
​
(m. 1960; div. 1970)​
[2]
​
​
(m. 1977; died 2009)​
PartnerHannah Wilke (1969–1977)
Children2[2]
RelativesRichard Oldenburg (brother)
Awards

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. Many of his works were made in collaboration with his wife, Coosje van Bruggen, who died in 2009; they had been married for 32 years. Oldenburg lived and worked in New York City.

Early life and education

Claes Oldenburg was born on January 28, 1929, in

Cooper Union Museum for the Arts of Decoration, where he also took the opportunity to learn more, on his own, about the history of art.[7]

Work

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

Oldenburg's first recorded sales of artworks were[when?] at the 57th Street Art Fair in Chicago, where he sold 5 items for a total price of $25.[8] He moved back to New York City in 1956. There he met a number of artists, including Jim Dine, Red Grooms, and Allan Kaprow, whose happenings incorporated theatrical aspects and provided an alternative to the abstract expressionism that had come to dominate much of the art scene. Oldenburg began toying with the idea of soft sculpture in 1957, when he completed a free-hanging piece made from a woman's stocking stuffed with newspaper. (The piece was untitled when he made it but is now referred to as Sausage.)[9]

By 1960, Oldenburg had produced sculptures containing simply rendered figures, letters, and signs, inspired by the

burlap, and newspapers; in 1961, he shifted his method, creating sculptures from chicken wire covered with plaster-soaked canvas and enamel paint, depicting everyday objects – articles of clothing and food items.[10] Oldenburg's first show which included three-dimensional works, in May 1959, was at the Judson Gallery, at Judson Memorial Church on Washington Square.[11] During this time, artist Robert Beauchamp described Oldenburg as "brilliant", due to the reaction that the pop artist brought to a "dull" abstract expressionist period.[12]

In the 1960s, Oldenburg became associated with the

Martha Jackson Gallery in New York, stocked with sculptures roughly in the form of consumer goods.[9]

Oldenburg moved to Los Angeles in 1963 "because it was the most opposite thing to New York [he] could think of".[9] That same year, he conceived AUT OBO DYS, performed in the parking lot of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics in December 1963. In 1965, he turned his attention to drawings and projects for imaginary outdoor monuments. Initially these monuments took the form of small collages such as a crayon image of a fat, fuzzy teddy bear looming over the grassy fields of New York's Central Park (1965)[15] and Lipsticks in Piccadilly Circus, London (1966).[16] In 1967, New York city cultural adviser Sam Green realized Oldenburg's first outdoor public monument; Placid Civic Monument took the form of a Conceptual performance/action behind the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, with a crew of gravediggers digging a 6-by-3-foot rectangular hole in the ground.[6] In 1969, Oldenberg contributed a drawing to the Moon Museum. Geometric Mouse-Scale A, Black 1/6, also from 1969, was selected to be part of the Governor Nelson A. Rockefeller Empire State Plaza Art Collection in Albany, New York.[17]

Many of Oldenburg's large-scale sculptures of mundane objects elicited ridicule before being accepted. For example, the 1969

Beinecke Plaza at Yale University, and "circulated on a loan basis to other campuses".[18] English art critic Ellen H. Johnson says that with its "bright color, contemporary form and material and its ignoble subject, it attacked the sterility and pretentiousness of the classicistic building behind it". The artist "pointed out it opposed levity to solemnity, color to colorlessness, metal to stone, simple to a sophisticated tradition. In theme, it is both phallic, life-engendering, and a bomb, the harbinger of death. Male in form, it is female in subject".[18] One of a number of Oldenburg's sculptures that possess interactive capabilities, it now resides in the Morse College
courtyard.

From the early 1970s on, Oldenburg concentrated almost exclusively on public commissions.[16] His first public work, Three-Way Plug came on commission from Oberlin College with a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.[19] His collaboration with Dutch/American writer and art historian Coosje van Bruggen dates from 1976. They were married in 1977. Oldenburg officially signed all the work he did from 1981 on with both his own name and van Bruggen's.[9] Their first collaboration came when Oldenburg was commissioned to rework Trowel I, a 1971 sculpture of an oversize garden tool, for the grounds of the Kröller-Müller Museum in Otterlo in the Netherlands.[20]

In 1988, the two created the iconic

Free Stamp in downtown Cleveland.[21]

In addition to freestanding projects, they occasionally contributed to architectural projects, among them, two Los Angeles projects in collaboration with architect Frank Gehry: Toppling Ladder With Spilling Paint, which was installed at Loyola Law School in 1986, and the building-mounted sculpture Giant Binoculars,[22] completed in Venice Beach in 1991.[9] The couple's collaboration with Gehry also involved a return to performance for Oldenburg when the trio presented Il Corso del Coltello, in Venice, Italy, in 1985; other characters were portrayed by Germano Celant and Pontus Hultén.[23] "Coltello" is the source of Knife Ship, a large-scale sculpture that served as the central prop; it was later seen in Los Angeles in 1988 when Oldenburg, van Bruggen and Gehry presented Coltello Recalled: Reflections on a Performance at the Japanese American Cultural & Community Center and the exhibition Props, Costumes and Designs for the Performance "Il Corso del Coltello" at Margo Leavin Gallery.[9] He collaborated with English director Gerald Fox in 1996 to make a documentary about himself in association with The South Bank Show which was broadcast on ITV.[24][25]

The city of Milan, Italy, commissioned the work known as Needle, Thread and Knot (Italian: Ago, filo e nodo) which was installed in 2000 in the Piazzale Cadorna.[26] In 2001, Oldenburg and van Bruggen created Dropped Cone, a huge inverted ice cream cone, on top of a shopping center in Cologne, Germany.[27] Installed at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in 2011, Paint Torch is a towering 53-foot-high (16 m) pop sculpture of a paintbrush, capped with bristles that are illuminated at night. The sculpture is installed at a daring 60-degree angle, as if in the act of painting.[28] In 2018, The Maze was included in 1968: Sparta Dreaming Athens at Château de Montsoreau-Museum of Contemporary Art.[29]

Exhibitions

Artists Claes Oldenburg and Fay Peck with museum director Jan van der Marck in 1968
Oldenburg in Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, 1970

Oldenburg's first one-man show, in 1959 at the Judson Gallery in New York, had shown figurative drawings and papier-mâché sculptures.

Whitney Museum of American Art in New York held a retrospective of the drawings of Oldenburg and van Bruggen; the same year, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York exhibited a selection of their sculptures on the roof of the museum.[6]

Oldenburg is represented by the Pace Gallery in New York[32] and Margo Leavin Gallery in Los Angeles.[33]

Recognition

In 1989, Oldenburg won the

American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters from 1975 on and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences from 1978.[35]

Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen together received honorary degrees from the

School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (2004).[35]

In her 16-minute, 16mm film Manhattan Mouse Museum (2011), artist Tacita Dean captured Oldenburg in his studio as he gently handles and dusts the small objects that line his bookshelves. The film is less about the artist's iconography than the embedded intellectual process which allowed him to transform everyday objects into remarkable sculptural forms.[36]

Personal life

Patty Mucha, who was married to Claes Oldenburg from 1960 to 1970, first met him after moving to New York City in 1957 to become an artist. When Oldenburg was painting portraits, Mucha became one of his nude models[37] before becoming his first wife. An Oldenburg drawing of Mucha titled Pat Reading in Bed, Lenox, 1959[38] is in the collection of the Whitney Museum of American Art. She was a collaborator in Oldenburg's happenings by coming up with ideas together, making the costumes together, and was also a performer in the piece, along with collaborating on happenings, she also as well, sewed his famous floor hamburger, ice cream, and cake. Mucha was lead singer in the band The Druds who were a band of artists including Andy Warhol, LaMonte Young, Lucas Samaras, and Walter DeMaria pre-velvet underground.

Between 1969 and 1977, Oldenburg was in a relationship with the feminist artist and sculptor, Hannah Wilke, who died in 1993.[39] They shared several studios and traveled together, and Wilke often photographed him.

Oldenburg and his second wife, Coosje van Bruggen, met in 1970 when Oldenburg's first major retrospective traveled to the

Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, where van Bruggen was a curator.[40] The couple were married in 1977.[41]

In 1992, Oldenburg and van Bruggen acquired Château de la Borde, a small

chateau, whose music room gave them the idea of making a domestically sized collection.[40] Van Bruggen and Oldenburg renovated the house, decorating it with modernist pieces by among others Le Corbusier, Charles and Ray Eames, and Alvar Aalto, Frank Gehry, Eileen Gray.[42] Van Bruggen died on January 10, 2009, from the effects of breast cancer.[20]

Oldenburg's brother, art historian

Richard E. Oldenburg, was director of the Museum of Modern Art, New York, between 1972 and 1993,[9] and later chairman of Sotheby's America.[43]

On July 18, 2022, Oldenburg died at his home in Manhattan from complications of a fall, aged 93.[44]

Art market

Oldenburg's sculpture Typewriter Eraser (1976), the third piece from an edition of three, was sold for $2.2 million at Christie's New York in 2009.[45]

The Whitney Museum of American Art currently houses thirty of Oldenburg's works.[46]

Gallery

See also

General and cited references

Citations

  1. ^ James O. Young (2001). Art and Knowledge. New York: Routledge, p. 135.
  2. ^ a b "Claes Oldenburg obituary". The Guardian. July 18, 2022. Retrieved July 19, 2022. Oldenburg was married to Patty Mucha (nee Muchinski) from 1960 until their divorce in 1970, and to Coosje van Bruggen from 1977 until her death. His brother Richard died in 2018. He is survived by his stepdaughter, Maartje, and stepson, Paulus.
  3. ^ "Claes Oldenburg 1929 – 2022".
  4. ^ "Gosta Oldenburg; Retired Diplomat, 98". The New York Times. April 1, 1992. Retrieved April 29, 2014.
  5. ^ "Biografía y obras: Oldenburg, Claes". Guggenheim Bilbao. May 10, 2012. Archived from the original on July 18, 2022. Retrieved July 18, 2022.
  6. ^ a b c Claes Oldenburg Archived May 10, 2012, at the Wayback Machine Guggenheim Collection.
  7. ^ "Claes Oldenburg." Encyclopedia of World Biography. Chicago: Fitzroy Dearborn, 1998; later: Gale. Retrieved via Biography in Context database, October 22, 2017.
  8. ^ David McCracken, "The Art Fair That's Been In the Picture the Longest", Chicago Tribune, June 5, 1987, page 3
  9. ^ a b c d e f g h McKenna, Kristine (July 2, 1995). "Art : When Bigger Is Better : Claes Oldenburg has spent the past 35 years blowing up and redefining everyday objects, all in the name of getting art off its pedestal". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved April 21, 2023.
  10. ^ "Claes Oldenburg: On View, Apr 14 – Aug 5, 2013". Museum of Modern Art. moma.org. Sections "Introduction", The Street" and "The Store". Retrieved October 23, 2017.
  11. ^ Claes Oldenburg, "Remembering Judson House," New York: Judson Memorial Church, p. 292
  12. ^ Paul Cummings (1975). "Oral history interview with Robert Beauchamp, 1975 Jan. 16". Oral history interview. Archives of American Art. Retrieved June 30, 2011.
  13. ^ "Six Feet of the 1960s and '70s: Patty Mucha—Once Mrs. Oldenburg—on Her Archives and New Memoir". The New York Observer. January 16, 2012.
  14. ^ "Guide to the The[sic] Patty Mucha Papers, 1949 – 2016 MSS.342". dlib.nyu.edu.
  15. ^ Christopher Knight (August 6, 1995), The Percolating Mind of Oldenburg : A retrospective shows how ideas from early in a career can cook for decades, before emerging to enshrine the mundane Los Angeles Times.
  16. ^ a b c Claes Oldenburg Museum of Modern Art, New York.
  17. ^ "Explore The Art Collection". Visit the Empire State Plaza & New York State Capitol.
  18. ^ a b Johnson, Ellen H. (1971). Claes Oldenburg. Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England: Penguin Books. p. 46.
  19. ^ Duffes, Melissa. "Oldenburg's First Commissioned Public Sculpture Returns to AMAM". Oberlin College. Retrieved October 12, 2013.
  20. ^
    ISSN 0362-4331
    . Retrieved April 21, 2023.
  21. ^ Roy, Chris; Edmonds, Joe. "The Free Stamp". Cleveland Historical. Retrieved August 10, 2020.
  22. ^ "Binoculars". Claus Oldenberg and Coosje VanBruggen. Retrieved October 1, 2023.
  23. ^ Claes Oldenburg: Props, Costumes and Designs for the Performance "Il Corso del Coltello", January 9 – February 13, 1988 Margo Leavin Gallery, Los Angeles.
  24. ^ "Claes Oldenburg (1996)". British Film Institute. Archived from the original on April 21, 2023. Retrieved April 21, 2023.
  25. ^ The South Bank Show: Claes Oldenburg (1996) - Gérald Fox | Synopsis, Characteristics, Moods, Themes and Related | AllMovie, retrieved April 21, 2023
  26. ^ "Needle, Thread and Knot in Piazzale Cadorna". in-Lombardia: The Official Tourism Information Site for Lombardy. June 14, 2021. Retrieved July 19, 2022.
  27. ^ "Dropped Cone". Oldenburgvanbruggen.com. Retrieved April 29, 2014.
  28. ^ "Oldenburg's Paint Torch | 1805". Pafa.org. Retrieved April 29, 2014.
  29. ^ Sevior, Michelle (November 7, 2018). "ArtPremium – 1968 – Sparta Dreaming Athens at Château de Montsoreau-Museum Contemporary Art". ArtPremium. Archived from the original on August 10, 2019. Retrieved August 10, 2019.
  30. ^ "Double vision: the joys of twin-projection cinema". British Film Institute. Retrieved December 1, 2015.
  31. ISSN 0362-4331
    . Retrieved April 21, 2023.
  32. ^ "Margo Leavin Gallery – Institution". ArtFacts. Retrieved July 19, 2022.
  33. ^ Lifetime Honors – National Medal of Arts Archived March 4, 2010, at the Wayback Machine
  34. ^ a b Oldenburg Biography Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia.
  35. ^ "Tacita Dean: Five Americans". newmuseum.org. Retrieved April 21, 2023.
  36. ^ "Patty [Oldenberg] Mucha Archive | Granary Books". granarybooks.com. Archived from the original on May 10, 2020. Retrieved July 19, 2020.
  37. ^ "Claes Oldenburg | Pat Reading in Bed, Lenox". Whitney Museum of American Art. Retrieved July 19, 2020.
  38. ^ Nancy Princenthal, Hannah Wilke, Prestel Publishing, New York
  39. ^
    ISSN 0362-4331
    . Retrieved April 21, 2023.
  40. ^ "Claes Oldenburg & Coosje van Bruggen: Biographies". OldenburgVanBruggen.com. Retrieved April 13, 2011.
  41. ^ Michael Peppiatt (April 2005), The Art of Inspiration – Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen Engage the Unexpected in the Loire Valley Architectural Digest.
  42. ISSN 0362-4331
    . Retrieved April 21, 2023.
  43. ^ Bernstein, Fred (July 18, 2022). "Claes Oldenburg, a whimsical father of pop art, dies at 93". The Washington Post. Retrieved July 18, 2022.
  44. ^ Claes Oldenburg, Typewriter Eraser (1976) Christie's Post War with the Contemporary Evening Sale, April 20, 1969.
  45. ^ "Claes Oldenburg". Whitney Museum of American Art. Retrieved June 2, 2023.

External links

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