Claes Oldenburg

The son of a diplomat, Claes Oldenburg was born in Stockholm, Sweden, in 1929.  A master of transformation, Oldenburg is considered the classic Pop artist, garnering attention for both his soft sculptures and his large-scale public projects based on everyday objects.  Oldenburg received his B.A. from Yale University, Connecticut, in 1950.  He then worked in Chicago as a newspaper reporter while studying at the Art Institute of Chicago from 1952 to 1954.  The first of his signature oversized soft sculptures appeared in 1963 and over 30 have been realized as large-scale public monuments.  The giant Lipstick, for example, was installed at Yale University.  Since 1970 his work has been exhibited at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Pennsylvania, the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., and the Nelson-Atkins Museum in Kansas City, Missouri, the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, Netherlands, the Kunsthalle in Düsseldorf, Germany, and the Tate Gallery in London, United Kingdom.  In recent years Oldenburg has returned to soft fabric sculpture and continues his long-standing relationship with Gemini G.E.L. in printmaking and cast sculpture.  In 1994 he received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the International Sculpture Center.

*Excerpted from Tools as Art: The Hechinger Collection, published by Harry N. Abrams Inc.