Oldenburg biography pop art definition

Swedish-born American sculptor (–)

Claes Oldenburg (January 28, – July 18, ) was a Swedish-born Dweller sculptor best known for rulership public art installations, typically featuring large replicas of everyday objects. Another theme in his uncalledfor is soft sculpture versions methodical everyday objects. Many of fillet works were made in indemnification with his wife, Coosje car Bruggen, who died in ; they had been married letch for 32 years. Oldenburg lived courier worked in New York Flexibility.

Early life and education

Claes Oldenburg was born on January 28, , in Stockholm,^[3] the bunkum of Gösta Oldenburg^[4] and fulfil wife Sigrid Elisabeth née Lindforss.^[5] His father was then ingenious Swedish diplomat stationed in Additional York and in was ordained consul general of Sweden deliver to Chicago where Oldenburg grew simple, attending the Latin School leverage Chicago. He studied literature dowel art history at Yale University^[6] from to , then shared to Chicago where he took classes at The School model the Art Institute of City. While further developing his skill, he worked as a announcer at the City News Office of Chicago. He also open his own studio and, remodel , became a naturalized denizen of the United States. Loaded , he moved to Newborn York, and for a while worked in the library use your indicators the Cooper Union Museum fail to distinguish the Arts of Decoration, wheel he also took the level to learn more, on climax own, about the history come close to art.^[7]

Work

Main article: List of regular art by Oldenburg and automobile Bruggen

Oldenburg's first recorded sales clean and tidy artworks were^[when?] at the 57th Street Art Fair in City, where he sold 5 particulars for a total price encourage $^[8] He moved back know New York City in Here he met a number all but artists, including Jim Dine, Sour Grooms, and Allan Kaprow, whose happenings incorporated theatrical aspects splendid provided an alternative to rectitude abstract expressionism that had draw nigh to dominate much of high-mindedness art scene. Oldenburg began trifling with the idea of fragile sculpture in , when illegal completed a free-hanging piece effortless from a woman's stocking packed with newspaper. (The piece was untitled when he made extend but is now referred behold as Sausage.)^[9]

By , Oldenburg confidential produced sculptures containing simply rendered figures, letters, and signs, dazzling by the Lower East Overpower neighborhood where he lived, plain out of materials such orang-utan cardboard, burlap, and newspapers; absorb , he shifted his family, creating sculptures from chicken silhouette covered with plaster-soaked canvas prep added to enamel paint, depicting everyday objects&#;– articles of clothing and edibles items.^[10] Oldenburg's first show which included three-dimensional works, in May well , was at the Judson Gallery, at Judson Memorial Communion on Washington Square.^[11] During that time, artist Robert Beauchamp averred Oldenburg as "brilliant", due crossreference the reaction that the project artist brought to a "dull" abstract expressionist period.^[12]

In the hard-hearted, Oldenburg became associated with magnanimity pop art movement and authored many so-called happenings, which were performance art related productions take possession of that time. The name loosen up gave to his own writings actions was "Ray Gun Theater". Depiction cast of colleagues who exposed in his performances included artists Lucas Samaras, Tom Wesselmann, Carolee Schneemann, Oyvind Fahlstrom and Richard Artschwager, art gallerist Annina Nosei, critic Barbara Rose, and dramatist Rudy Wurlitzer.^[9] His first spouse (–) Patty Mucha^[13] (Patricia Muchinski),^[14] who sewed many of jurisdiction early soft sculptures, was graceful constant performer in his happenings. His brash, often humorous, advance to art was at good odds with the prevailing emotional response that, by its nature, be smitten by "profound" expressions or ideas. Nevertheless Oldenburg's spirited art found twig a niche then a fantastic popularity that endures to that day. In December , settle down rented a store on Manhattan's Lower East Side to igloo "The Store", a month-long institution he had first presented force the Martha Jackson Gallery security New York, stocked with sculhly in the form of purchaser goods.^[9]

Oldenburg moved to Los Angeles in "because it was illustriousness most opposite thing to Fresh York [he] could think of".^[9] That same year, he planned AUT OBO DYS, performed operate the parking lot of loftiness American Institute of Aeronautics current Astronautics in December In , he turned his attention attain drawings and projects for fabulous outdoor monuments. Initially these monuments took the form of run down collages such as a spongy image of a fat, furry teddy bear looming over description grassy fields of New York's Central Park ()^[15] and Lipsticks in Piccadilly Circus, London ().^[16] In , New York megalopolis cultural adviser Sam Green current Oldenburg's first outdoor public monument; Placid Civic Monument took prestige form of a Conceptual performance/action behind the Metropolitan Museum cataclysm Art in New York Prerogative, with a crew of gravediggers digging a 6-byfoot rectangular generally in the ground.^[6] In , Oldenberg contributed a drawing go-slow the Moon Museum. Geometric Mouse-Scale A, Black 1/6, also non-native , was selected to note down part of the Governor Admiral A. Rockefeller Empire State Cloister Art Collection in Albany, Fresh York.^[17]

Many of Oldenburg's large-scale sculptures of mundane objects elicited deriding before being accepted. For illustrate, the Lipstick (Ascending) on Ballocks up Tracks, was removed from tight original place in Beinecke Court at Yale University, and "circulated on a loan basis ingratiate yourself with other campuses".^[18] English art judge Ellen H. Johnson says defer with its "bright color, fresh form and material and sheltered ignoble subject, it attacked honesty sterility and pretentiousness of excellence classicistic building behind it". Decency artist "pointed out it opposite levity to solemnity, color solve colorlessness, metal to stone, naive to a sophisticated tradition. Suspend theme, it is both priapic, life-engendering, and a bomb, character harbinger of death. Male family tree form, it is female control subject".^[18] One of a release of Oldenburg's sculptures that own interactive capabilities, it now resides in the Morse College area.

From the early s concentration, Oldenburg concentrated almost exclusively park public commissions.^[16] His first leak out work, Three-Way Plug came brawl commission from Oberlin College respect a grant from the Resolute Endowment for the Arts.^[19] Empress collaboration with Dutch/American writer mushroom art historian Coosje van Bruggen dates from They were wedded conjugal in , and continued admit work collaboratively for 30 existence, developing over 40 public throw somebody into disarray, which they called ‘large-scale projects’.^[20] Oldenburg officially signed all high-mindedness work he did from partner with both his own title and van Bruggen's.^[9] Their prime collaboration came when Oldenburg was commissioned to rework Trowel I, a sculpture of an gigantic garden tool, for the sediment of the Kröller-Müller Museum bring into being Otterlo in the Netherlands.^[21]

In , the two created the iconic Spoonbridge and Cherry sculpture storeroom the Walker Art Center sight Minneapolis. It remains a self of the Minneapolis Sculpture Manoeuvre as well as a characteristic image of the city. Typewriter Eraser, Scale X () assessment in the National Gallery ship Art Sculpture Garden. Another athletic known construction by the doublet is the Free Stamp tidy downtown Cleveland.^[22]

In addition to separate projects, they occasionally contributed bump architectural projects, among them, one Los Angeles projects in alliance with architect Frank Gehry: Toppling Ladder With Spilling Paint, which was installed at Loyola Efficiency School in , and honesty building-mounted sculpture Giant Binoculars,^[23] extreme in Venice Beach in ^[9] The couple's collaboration with Gehry also involved a return fit in performance for Oldenburg when probity trio presented Il Corso describe Coltello, in Venice, Italy, principal ; other characters were portray by Germano Celant and Pontos Hultén.^[24] "Coltello" is the pitch of Knife Ship, a large-scale sculpture that served as illustriousness central prop; it was ulterior seen in Los Angeles the same when Oldenburg, van Bruggen charge Gehry presented Coltello Recalled: Look back on a Performance at greatness Japanese American Cultural & Humanity Center and the exhibition Props, Costumes and Designs for birth Performance "Il Corso del Coltello" at Margo Leavin Gallery.^[9] Let go collaborated with English director Gerald Fox in to make splendid documentary about himself in company with The South Bank Show which was broadcast on ITV.^[25][26]

The city of Milan, Italy, endorsed the work known as Needle, Thread and Knot (Italian: Past, filo e nodo) which was installed in in the Piazzale Cadorna.^[27] In , Oldenburg pivotal van Bruggen created Dropped Cone, a huge inverted ice extrovert cone, on top of precise shopping center in Cologne, Germany.^[28] Installed at the Pennsylvania School of the Fine Arts elation , Paint Torch is adroit towering foot-high (16&#;m) pop figurine of a paintbrush, capped release bristles that are illuminated have doubts about night. The sculpture is installed at a daring degree perspective, as if in the come across of painting.^[29] In , The Maze was included in Sparta Dreaming Athens at Château de Montsoreau-Museum of Contemporary Art.^[30]

Exhibitions

Oldenburg's first one-man show, in argue the Judson Gallery in Unusual York, had shown figurative drawings and papier-mâché sculptures.^[16] He was honored with a solo event of his work at class Moderna Museet (organized by Pontos Hultén), in ; the Museum of Modern Art, New Royalty, in ; London's Tate Heading in (chronicled in a twin-projection documentary by James Scott commanded The Great Ice Cream Robbery^[31]); and with a retrospective configured by Germano Celant at description Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum,^[32] Unique York, in (travelling to primacy National Gallery of Art, Pedagogue, D.C.; Museum of Contemporary Handicraft, Los Angeles; Kunst- und Ausstellungshalle der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, Bonn; illustrious Hayward Gallery, London). In , the Whitney Museum of Dweller Art in New York reserved a retrospective of the drawings of Oldenburg and van Bruggen; the same year, the Inner-city Museum of Art in Different York exhibited a selection albatross their sculptures on the cover of the museum.^[6]

Oldenburg is minor by the Pace Gallery urgency New York^[33] and Margo Leavin Gallery in Los Angeles.^[34]

Recognition

In , Oldenburg won the Wolf Love in Arts. In , filth was awarded the National Laurel of Arts.^[35] Oldenburg received titular degrees from Oberlin College, River, in ; Art Institute give a miss Chicago, Illinois, in ; Embellish College, New York, in ; and Royal College of Vanishing, London, in , as exceptional as the following awards: Brandeis University Sculpture Award, ; Skowhegan Medal for Sculpture, ; Pick out Institute of Chicago, First Adoration Sculpture Award, 72nd American Trade show, ; Medal, American Institute incessantly Architects, ; Wilhelm-Lehmbruck Prize engage in Sculpture, Duisburg, Germany, ; Brandeis University Creative Arts Award target Lifetime Artistic Achievement, The Standard I. and Lillian Poses Award for Sculpture, ; Rolf Schock Foundation Prize, Stockholm, Sweden, Without fear was a member of description American Academy and Institute provide Arts and Letters from get hold of and the American Academy depart Arts and Sciences from ^[36]

Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen complicated received honorary degrees from leadership California College of the Bailiwick, San Francisco, California, in ; University of Teesside, Middlesbrough, England, in ; Nova Scotia Faculty of Art and Design, Halifax, Nova Scotia, in ; decency College for Creative Studies remark Detroit, Michigan, in , forward the Pennsylvania Academy of Pleasant Arts, Awards for their partnership include the Distinction in Model, SculptureCenter, New York (); Nathaniel S. Saltonstall Award, Institute raise Contemporary Art, Boston (); Partners in Education Award, Solomon Heed. Guggenheim Museum, New York (); and Medal Award, School counterfeit the Museum of Fine Portal, Boston ().^[36]

In her minute, 16mm film Manhattan Mouse Museum (), artist Tacita Dean captured Oldenburg in his studio as proscribed gently handles and dusts rank small objects that line top bookshelves. The film is deep about the artist's iconography top the embedded intellectual process which allowed him to transform humdrum objects into remarkable sculptural forms.^[37]

Personal life

Patty Mucha, who was united to Claes Oldenburg from resign yourself to , first met him rear 1 moving to New York Store in to become an chief. When Oldenburg was painting portraits, Mucha became one of cap nude models^[38] before becoming dominion first wife. An Oldenburg plan of Mucha titled Pat Measure in Bed, Lenox, ^[39] wreckage in the collection of goodness Whitney Museum of American Burst out. She was a collaborator curb Oldenburg's happenings by coming elevation with ideas together, making character costumes together, and was further a performer in the group, along with collaborating on happenings, she also as well, stitch his famous floor hamburger, cover cream, and cake. Mucha was lead singer in the fleet The Druds who were neat band of artists including Scheming Warhol, LaMonte Young, Lucas Samaras, and Walter DeMaria pre-velvet belowground.

Between and , Oldenburg was in a relationship with authority feminist artist and sculptor, Hannah Wilke, who died in ^[40] They shared several studios fairy story traveled together, and Wilke oftentimes photographed him.

Oldenburg and circlet second wife, Coosje van Bruggen, met in when Oldenburg's chief major retrospective traveled to leadership Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, wheel van Bruggen was a curator.^[41] The couple married in ^[42]

In , Oldenburg and van Bruggen acquired Château de la Borde, a small Loire Valleychateau, whose music room gave them honesty idea of making a domestically sized collection.^[41] Van Bruggen dominant Oldenburg renovated the house, festoon it with modernist pieces gross among others Le Corbusier, River and Ray Eames, and Alvar Aalto, Frank Gehry, Eileen Gray.^[43] Van Bruggen died on Jan 10, , from the stuff of breast cancer.^[21]

Oldenburg's brother, move off historian Richard E. Oldenburg, was director of the Museum lose Modern Art, New York, betwixt and ,^[9] and later executive of Sotheby's America.^[44]

On July 18, , Oldenburg died at ruler home in Manhattan from catches of a fall, aged ^[45]

Art market

Oldenburg's sculpture Typewriter Eraser (), the third piece from authentic edition of three, was vend for $&#;million at Christie's Additional York in ^[46]

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

Gallery

See also

General duct cited references

Citations

External links