Claes Oldenburg was a Swedish-born American sculptor best known for his public art installations, typically featuring large replicas of everyday objects.
22 Facts About Claes Oldenburg
2.
Claes Oldenburg was born on January 28,1929, in Stockholm, the son of Gosta Oldenburg and his wife Sigrid Elisabeth nee Lindforss.
3.
Claes Oldenburg's father was then a Swedish diplomat stationed in New York and in 1936 was appointed consul general of Sweden to Chicago where Oldenburg grew up, attending the Latin School of Chicago.
4.
Claes Oldenburg studied literature and art history at Yale University from 1946 to 1950, then returned to Chicago where he took classes at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
5.
Claes Oldenburg opened his own studio and, in 1953, became a naturalized citizen of the United States.
6.
Claes Oldenburg moved back to New York City in 1956.
7.
Claes 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.
8.
Claes Oldenburg's first show which included three-dimensional works, in May 1959, was at the Judson Gallery, at Judson Memorial Church on Washington Square.
9.
Claes Oldenburg's first wife Patty Mucha, who sewed many of his early soft sculptures, was a constant performer in his happenings.
10.
Claes Oldenburg moved to Los Angeles in 1963 "because it was the most opposite thing to New York [he] could think of".
11.
Claes Oldenburg officially signed all the work he did from 1981 on with both his own name and van Bruggen's.
12.
Claes Oldenburg 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.
13.
Claes Oldenburg is represented by the Pace Gallery in New York and Margo Leavin Gallery in Los Angeles.
14.
Claes Oldenburg was a member of the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters from 1975 on and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences from 1978.
15.
When Claes Oldenburg was painting portraits, Mucha became one of his nude models before becoming his first wife.
16.
An Claes Oldenburg drawing of Mucha titled Pat Reading in Bed, Lenox, 1959 is in the collection of the Whitney Museum of American Art.
17.
Claes Oldenburg was a collaborator in Oldenburg's happenings by coming up with ideas together, making the costumes together, and was a performer in the piece, along with collaborating on happenings, she as well, sewed his famous floor hamburger, ice cream, and cake.
18.
Between 1969 and 1977, Claes Oldenburg was in a relationship with the feminist artist and sculptor, Hannah Wilke, who died in 1993.
19.
Claes Oldenburg and his second wife, Coosje van Bruggen, met in 1970 when Claes Oldenburg's first major retrospective traveled to the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, where van Bruggen was a curator.
20.
Van Bruggen and Claes 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.
21.
On July 18,2022, Claes Oldenburg died at his home in Manhattan from complications of a fall, aged 93.
22.
May 1974, Clothespin is a weathering steel sculpture by Claes Oldenburg, located at Centre Square, 1500 Market Street, Philadelphia.