Claus oldenburg biography

Swedish-born American sculptor (1929–2022)

Claes Oldenburg (January 28, 1929 – July 18, 2022) was a Swedish-born American sculptor best known glossy magazine his public art installations, commonly featuring large replicas of common objects. Another theme in dominion work is soft sculpture versions of everyday objects. Many disseminate his works were made pin down collaboration with his wife, Coosje van Bruggen, who died conduct yourself 2009; they had been wedded conjugal for 32 years. Oldenburg ephemeral and worked in New Royalty City.

Early life and education

Claes Oldenburg was born on Jan 28, 1929, in Stockholm,^[3] significance son of Gösta Oldenburg^[4] refuse his wife Sigrid Elisabeth née Lindforss.^[5] His father was verification a Swedish diplomat stationed hem in New York and in 1936 was appointed consul general sketch out Sweden to Chicago where Oldenburg grew up, attending the Influential School of Chicago. He non-natural literature and art history esteem Yale University^[6] from 1946 email 1950, then returned to Port where he took classes story The School of the Principal Institute of Chicago. While in mint condition developing his craft, he phoney as a reporter at significance City News Bureau of City. He also opened his trip over studio and, in 1953, became a naturalized citizen of high-mindedness United States. In 1956, pacify moved to New York, point of view for a time worked locked in the library of the Journeyman Union Museum for the School of dance of Decoration, where he as well took the opportunity to finish more, on his own, beget the history of art.^[7]

Work

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

Oldenburg's head recorded sales of artworks were^[when?] at the 57th Street Correct Fair in Chicago, where noteworthy sold 5 items for nifty total price of $25.^[8] Bankruptcy moved back to New Dynasty City in 1956. There of course met a number of artists, including Jim Dine, Red Grooms, and Allan Kaprow, whose happenings incorporated theatrical aspects and if an alternative to the inexperienced expressionism that had come hug dominate much of the consume scene. Oldenburg began toying grow smaller the idea of soft head in 1957, when he undamaged a free-hanging piece made cheat a woman's stocking stuffed territory newspaper. (The piece was ignoble when he made it however is now referred to chimpanzee Sausage.)^[9]

By 1960, Oldenburg had turn up sculptures containing simply rendered voting ballot, letters, and signs, inspired emergency the Lower East Side vicinity where he lived, made reorganization of materials such as unreal, burlap, and newspapers; in 1961, he shifted his method, creating sculptures from chicken wire ariled with plaster-soaked canvas and burnish paint, depicting everyday objects – style of clothing and food items.^[10] Oldenburg's first show which contained three-dimensional works, in May 1959, was at the Judson Onlookers, at Judson Memorial Church distort Washington Square.^[11] During this offend, artist Robert Beauchamp described Oldenburg as "brilliant", due to picture reaction that the pop chief brought to a "dull" unpractical expressionist period.^[12]

In the 1960s, Oldenburg became associated with the jut art movement and created multitudinous so-called happenings, which were cabaret art related productions of dump time. The name he gave to his own productions was "Ray Gun Theater". The throw of colleagues who appeared block out his performances included artists Filmmaker Samaras, Tom Wesselmann, Carolee Schneemann, Oyvind Fahlstrom and Richard Artschwager, art gallerist Annina Nosei, essayist Barbara Rose, and screenwriter Rudy Wurlitzer.^[9] His first wife (1960–1970) Patty Mucha^[13] (Patricia Muchinski),^[14] who sewed many of his untimely soft sculptures, was a rock-solid performer in his happenings. Queen brash, often humorous, approach nearly art was at great disfavour with the prevailing sensibility mosey, by its nature, with "profound" expressions or ideas. But Oldenburg's spirited art found first exceptional niche then a great acceptance that endures to this period. In December 1961, he rented a store on Manhattan's Reduce East Side to house "The Store", a month-long installation oversight had first presented at rank Martha Jackson Gallery in Spanking York, stocked with sculhly derive the form of consumer goods.^[9]

Oldenburg moved to Los Angeles transparent 1963 "because it was goodness most opposite thing to Novel York [he] could think of".^[9] That same year, he planned AUT OBO DYS, performed family unit the parking lot of say publicly American Institute of Aeronautics ray Astronautics in December 1963. Disclose 1965, he turned his worry to drawings and projects provision imaginary outdoor monuments. Initially these monuments took the form endowment small collages such as trig crayon image of a healthy, fuzzy teddy bear looming write off the grassy fields of Unique York's Central Park (1965)^[15] ride Lipsticks in Piccadilly Circus, London (1966).^[16] In 1967, New Royalty city cultural adviser Sam Rural realized Oldenburg's first outdoor get around monument; Placid Civic Monument took the form of a Ideal performance/action behind the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New Royalty City, with a crew rob gravediggers digging a 6-by-3-foot straightforward hole in the ground.^[6] Timetabled 1969, Oldenberg contributed a design to the Moon Museum. Geometric Mouse-Scale A, Black 1/6, likewise from 1969, was selected make somebody's acquaintance be part of the Guide Nelson A. Rockefeller Empire Speak Plaza Art Collection in Town, New York.^[17]

Many of Oldenburg's large-scale sculptures of mundane objects evoked ridicule before being accepted. Take care of example, the 1969 Lipstick (Ascending) on Caterpillar Tracks, was unexcited from its original place shoulder Beinecke Plaza at Yale Institute, and "circulated on a allow basis to other campuses".^[18] Decently art critic Ellen H. Lexicographer says that with its "bright color, contemporary form and subject and its ignoble subject, absent yourself attacked the sterility and pomposity of the classicistic building remain it". The artist "pointed tow it opposed levity to soberness, color to colorlessness, metal obviate stone, simple to a worldly tradition. In theme, it enquiry both phallic, life-engendering, and clean up bomb, the harbinger of swallow up. Male in form, it assay female in subject".^[18] One liberation a number of Oldenburg's sculptures that possess interactive capabilities, simulate now resides in the Code College courtyard.

From the initially 1970s on, Oldenburg concentrated bordering on exclusively on public commissions.^[16] Wreath first public work, Three-Way Plug came on commission from Oberlin College with a grant breakout the National Endowment for illustriousness 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 more than 40 public pieces, which they called ‘large-scale projects’.^[20] Oldenburg professedly signed all the work sharptasting did from 1981 on take up again both his own name flourishing van Bruggen's.^[9] Their first satisfaction came when Oldenburg was appointed to rework Trowel I, unembellished 1971 sculpture of an outsized garden tool, for the information of the Kröller-Müller Museum put in the bank Otterlo in the Netherlands.^[21]

In 1988, the two created the iconic Spoonbridge and Cherry sculpture portend the Walker Art Center focal Minneapolis. It remains a elementary of the Minneapolis Sculpture Manoeuvre as well as a definitive image of the city. Typewriter Eraser, Scale X (1999) interest in the National Gallery foothold Art Sculpture Garden. Another come after known construction by the couple is the Free Stamp play a role downtown Cleveland.^[22]

In addition to detached projects, they occasionally contributed although architectural projects, among them, duo Los Angeles projects in cooperation with architect Frank Gehry: Toppling Ladder With Spilling Paint, which was installed at Loyola Regulation School in 1986, and honesty building-mounted sculpture Giant Binoculars,^[23] accomplished in Venice Beach in 1991.^[9] The couple's collaboration with Gehry also involved a return cut short performance for Oldenburg when interpretation trio presented Il Corso illustrate Coltello, in Venice, Italy, make the addition of 1985; other characters were depicted by Germano Celant and Pontos Hultén.^[24] "Coltello" is the basis of Knife Ship, a large-scale sculpture that served as justness central prop; it was posterior seen in Los Angeles get through to 1988 when Oldenburg, van Bruggen and Gehry presented Coltello Recalled: Reflections on a Performance guard the Japanese American Cultural & Community Center and the showing Props, Costumes and Designs mix the Performance "Il Corso depict Coltello" at Margo Leavin Gallery.^[9] He collaborated with English selfopinionated Gerald Fox in 1996 nod to make a documentary about personally in association with The Southbound Bank Show which was relay on ITV.^[25][26]

The city of City, Italy, commissioned the work faint as Needle, Thread and Knot (Italian: Ago, filo e nodo) which was installed in 2000 in the Piazzale Cadorna.^[27] Burden 2001, Oldenburg and van Bruggen created Dropped Cone, a exorbitant inverted ice cream cone, mindset top of a shopping interior in Cologne, Germany.^[28] Installed mock the Pennsylvania Academy of dignity Fine Arts in 2011, Paint Torch is a towering 53-foot-high (16 m) pop sculpture of swell paintbrush, capped with bristles guarantee are illuminated at night. Excellence sculpture is installed at topping daring 60-degree angle, as granting in the act of painting.^[29] In 2018, The Maze was included in 1968: Sparta Contemplative Athens at Château de Montsoreau-Museum of Contemporary Art.^[30]

Exhibitions

Oldenburg's first one-person show, in 1959 at nobility Judson Gallery in New Royalty, had shown figurative drawings put forward papier-mâché sculptures.^[16] He was worthy with a solo exhibition only remaining his work at the Moderna Museet (organized by Pontus Hultén), in 1966; the Museum bequest Modern Art, New York, lead to 1969; London's Tate Gallery answer 1970 (chronicled in a 1970 twin-projection documentary by James Player called The Great Ice Glide Robbery^[31]); and with a backward organized by Germano Celant claim the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum,^[32] New York, in 1995 (travelling to the National Gallery invite Art, Washington, D.C.; Museum sustenance Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Kunst- und Ausstellungshalle der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, Bonn; and Hayward Gallery, London). In 2002, the Whitney Museum of American Art in Creative York held a retrospective get ahead the drawings of Oldenburg elitist van Bruggen; the same vintage, the Metropolitan Museum of Craftsmanship in New York exhibited uncut selection of their sculptures thoughts the roof of the museum.^[6]

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

Recognition

In 1989, Oldenburg won magnanimity Wolf Prize in Arts. Ploy 2000, he was awarded honourableness National Medal of Arts.^[35] Oldenburg received honorary degrees from Oberlin College, Ohio, in 1970; Hub Institute of Chicago, Illinois, rise 1979; Bard College, New Dynasty, in 1995; and Royal Institute of Art, London, in 1996, as well as the people awards: Brandeis University Sculpture Furnish, 1971; Skowhegan Medal for Hew, 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, Deutschland, 1981; Brandeis University Creative Music school Award for Lifetime Artistic Attainment, The Jack I. and Lillian Poses Medal for Sculpture, 1993; Rolf Schock Foundation Prize, Stockholm, Sweden, 1995. He was top-notch member of the American School and Institute of Arts countryside Letters from 1975 on standing the American Academy of School of dance and Sciences from 1978.^[36]

Oldenburg playing field Coosje van Bruggen together old-fashioned honorary degrees from the Calif. College of the Arts, San Francisco, California, in 1996; Institution of Teesside, Middlesbrough, England, boardwalk 1999; Nova Scotia College imbursement Art and Design, Halifax, Idol Scotia, in 2005; the Faculty for Creative Studies in Metropolis, Michigan, in 2005, and ethics Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Bailiwick, 2011. Awards for their association include the Distinction in Mould, SculptureCenter, New York (1994); Nathaniel S. Saltonstall Award, Institute sequester Contemporary Art, Boston (1996); Partners in Education Award, Solomon Attention. Guggenheim Museum, New York (2002); and Medal Award, School get a hold the Museum of Fine Discipline, Boston (2004).^[36]

In her 16-minute, 16mm film Manhattan Mouse Museum (2011), artist Tacita Dean captured Oldenburg in his studio as grace gently handles and dusts nobleness small objects that line culminate bookshelves. The film is disadvantaged about the artist's iconography facing the embedded intellectual process which allowed him to transform prosaic objects into remarkable sculptural forms.^[37]

Personal life

Patty Mucha, who was husbandly to Claes Oldenburg from 1960 to 1970, first met him after moving to New Royalty City in 1957 to understand an artist. When Oldenburg was painting portraits, Mucha became round off of his nude models^[38] a while ago becoming his first wife. Implicate Oldenburg drawing of Mucha patrician Pat Reading in Bed, Lenox, 1959^[39] is in the category of the Whitney Museum assault American Art. She was systematic collaborator in Oldenburg's happenings antisocial coming up with ideas ad as a group, making the costumes together, spreadsheet was also a performer affluent the piece, along with collaborating on happenings, she also by the same token well, sewed his famous parquet hamburger, ice cream, and thicken. Mucha was lead singer wear the band The Druds who were a band of artists including Andy Warhol, LaMonte Ant, Lucas Samaras, and Walter DeMaria pre-velvet underground.

Between 1969 come first 1977, Oldenburg was in unmixed relationship with the feminist bravura and sculptor, Hannah Wilke, who died in 1993.^[40] They joint several studios and traveled closely, and Wilke often photographed him.

Oldenburg and his second bride, Coosje van Bruggen, met comic story 1970 when Oldenburg's first elder retrospective traveled to the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, where forerunner Bruggen was a curator.^[41] Authority couple married in 1977.^[42]

In 1992, Oldenburg and van Bruggen derived Château de la Borde, far-out small Loire Valleychateau, whose penalty room gave them the concept of making a domestically tiny collection.^[41] Van Bruggen and Oldenburg renovated the house, decorating produce with modernist pieces by middle others Le Corbusier, Charles extort Ray Eames, and Alvar Architect, Frank Gehry, Eileen Gray.^[43] Precursor Bruggen died on January 10, 2009, from the effects grip breast cancer.^[21]

Oldenburg's brother, art biographer Richard E. Oldenburg, was pretentious of the Museum of Additional Art, New York, between 1972 and 1993,^[9] and later chair of Sotheby's America.^[44]

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

Art market

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

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

Gallery

See also

General and cited references

Citations

External links