Claes Oldenburg
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.
Claes Oldenburg
January 28, 1929
July 18, 2022 (aged 93)
- Swedish
- American (from 1953)
Sculpture
Hannah Wilke (1969–1977)
2[2]
Richard Oldenburg (brother)
- Wolf Prize in Arts – Sculpture
1989 - Rolf Schock Prize – Visual arts
1995 - National Medal of Arts
2000
Early life and education[edit]
Claes Oldenburg was born on January 28, 1929, in Stockholm,[3] the son of Gösta Oldenburg[4] and his wife Sigrid Elisabeth née Lindforss.[5] His 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. He studied literature and art history at Yale University[6] from 1946 to 1950, then returned to Chicago where he took classes at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. While further developing his craft, he worked as a reporter at the City News Bureau of Chicago. He also opened his own studio and, in 1953, became a naturalized citizen of the United States. In 1956, he moved to New York, and for a time worked in the library of the 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]
Recognition[edit]
In 1989, Oldenburg won the Wolf Prize in Arts. In 2000, he was awarded the National Medal of Arts.[34] Oldenburg received honorary degrees from Oberlin College, Ohio, in 1970; Art Institute of Chicago, Illinois, in 1979; Bard College, New York, in 1995; and Royal College of Art, London, in 1996, as well as the following awards: Brandeis University Sculpture Award, 1971; Skowhegan Medal for Sculpture, 1972; Art Institute of Chicago, First Prize Sculpture Award, 72nd American Exhibition, 1976; Medal, American Institute of Architects, 1977; Wilhelm-Lehmbruck Prize for Sculpture, Duisburg, Germany, 1981; Brandeis University Creative Arts Award for Lifetime Artistic Achievement, The Jack I. and Lillian Poses Medal for Sculpture, 1993; Rolf Schock Foundation Prize, Stockholm, Sweden, 1995. He 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.[35]
Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen together received honorary degrees from the California College of the Arts, San Francisco, California, in 1996; University of Teesside, Middlesbrough, England, in 1999; Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, Halifax, Nova Scotia, in 2005; the College for Creative Studies in Detroit, Michigan, in 2005, and the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, 2011. Awards for their collaboration include the Distinction in Sculpture, SculptureCenter, New York (1994); Nathaniel S. Saltonstall Award, Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston (1996); Partners in Education Award, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York (2002); and Medal Award, 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[edit]
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 Loire Valley 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[edit]
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]