Coosje van Bruggen

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Coosje van Bruggen
van Bruggen and her husband, Claes Oldenburg
Born
Jacoba Wilhelmina Hendrika van Bruggen

(1942-06-06)June 6, 1942
Groningen, Netherlands
DiedJanuary 10, 2009(2009-01-10) (aged 66)
Los Angeles, California, U.S.
Nationality
  • Dutch
  • American (from 1993)
Known forSculpture
Notable workList of public art by Oldenburg and van Bruggen
Spouses
  • Paul Kapteyn
    ​
    (before 1977)​
  • Claes Oldenburg
    ​
    (m. 1977)​
Children2

Coosje van Bruggen (June 6, 1942 – January 10, 2009) was a Dutch-born American sculptor, art historian, and critic.[1] She collaborated extensively with her husband, Claes Oldenburg.

Biography

Born to a physician in Groningen, van Bruggen studied history of art at the

Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam. Van Bruggen married her first husband Paul Kapteyn, they had two children, Maartje Kapteyn and Paulus Kapteyn. In Amsterdam she worked with environmental artists like Doug Wheeler, Larry Bell, and the members of the Dutch avant-garde.[1] Until 1976, van Bruggen taught at the Academy for Art and Industries in Enschede. She married her second husband, Claes Oldenburg, in 1977 and moved to New York
the following year. In 1993 she became a United States citizen.

Work

She began working with her new husband, sculptor

Kistefos Sculpture Park in the countryside north of Oslo.[2]

At her instigation, the couple branched out into indoor installation and performance art. In 1985 they collaborated on Il Corso del Coltello (“The Course of the Knife”), a performance piece in Venice, Italy, with the architect Frank Gehry, whom van Bruggen had met in 1982 when she was on the selection committee for documenta 7 in Kassel.[1]

Since the early 1980s van Bruggen worked as an independent critic and curator. She contributed articles to

Yale University School of Art in 1996–97.[2]

Van Bruggen was the author of scholarly books and essays on the work of major contemporary artists including

Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain.[2]

Van Bruggen and Oldenburg were based in New York for many years, but they also lived and worked for extensive periods in Los Angeles and, since 1992, at Château de la Borde in Beaumont-sur-Dême, in the Loire Valley of France.

One U.S. installation the pair collaborated on is the fiberglass and steel

GAP founders Donald and Doris F. Fisher, and installed in the newly built Rincon Park along the Embarcadero in San Francisco in 2002.[5]

In 2021, Pace Gallery presented an exhibition of van Bruggen's collaborative work with Claes Oldenburg spanning the 1980s to the late 2000s.[6]

  • Bottle O'Notes (Middlesbrough)
    Bottle O'Notes (Middlesbrough)
  • Flying Pins (2000), Eindhoven
    Flying Pins (2000), Eindhoven
  • Houseball, Berlin
    Houseball, Berlin

Awards

Together with Oldenburg, van Bruggen received numerous awards including the Distinction in Sculpture, Sculpture Center, New York (1994); Nathaniel S. Saltonstall Award,

Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, Halifax, Nova Scotia (2005); and the College for Creative Studies
in Detroit, Michigan (2005).

The estate of van Bruggen is represented by The Pace Gallery, New York.

Death

After a long battle with breast cancer, van Bruggen died at her residence in Los Angeles in 2009, aged 66.[3]

Sculptures

Main article:
List of works by Oldenburg and van Bruggen

See also

References

  1. ^ a b c Kino, Carol. January 13, 2009. Coosje van Bruggen, Sculptor, Dies at 66, The New York Times.
  2. ^ a b c d e Suzanne Muchnich (January 13, 2009), "Coosje van Bruggen dies at 66; art historian made sculptures with husband Claes Oldenburg". Los Angeles Times.
  3. ^ a b Richard Lacayo (January 13, 2009), Coosje van Bruggen: 1942-2009 Time).
  4. ^ Mike Boehm (March 1, 2008), 'Collar and Bow' -- and then a suit Los Angeles Times.
  5. ^ Hoge, Patrick (November 23, 2002). "S.F. struck by love / Cupid's big bow gets rise out of passers-by". San Francisco Chronicle. Retrieved November 8, 2012.
  6. ^ "Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen's Shared History". ocula.com. March 17, 2021. Retrieved March 17, 2021.

External links

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Coosje_van_Bruggen&oldid=1204766469"