This biography from the Archives of AskART:
|  Whimsical sculpture of pop culture objects, many of them large and
out-of-doors, is the signature work of Swedish-born Claes Oldenburg who
became one of America's leading Pop Artists. His art is derived
from his surroundings.
His father was a diplomat and moved his
family from Stockholm during Claes' childhood to a variety of locations
including New York State; Oslo, Norway; and Chicago, Illinois; but
Claes did not become an American citizen until 1950.
He began
his formal art training at Yale University, graduating in 1951, and
then enrolled at the Art Institute of Chicago from 1952 to 1954.
In 1953, some of his satirical drawings were included in his first
group show at the Club St. Elmo, Chicago, and he also painted at the
Oxbow School of Painting in Michigan.
In 1956, he moved to New
York where he drew and painted while working as a clerk in the art
libraries of Cooper-Union. He became interested in environmental
art through Allan Kaprow and his "Happenings," and in 1959, had his
first one-man show, held at the Judson Gallery, New York where he
exhibited wood and newspaper sculpture and painted papier-mache
objects. During this time, he was influenced by the whimsical
work of French artist, Bernard Buffet, and he experimented materials
and images of the junk-filled streets of New York.
In 1960, he
created his first Pop-Art environments and Happenings in a mock store
full of plaster objects. Around 1965 he was making 3 versions of
each object-a hard one, a "ghost" one (on canvas), and a soft one
(vinyl). About the same time, he did colossal-sized public
sculpture such as pairs of scissors, ironing boards, and a typewriter
eraser. Lipstick mounted on a moveable tractor was the first to be executed and was placed outdoors on the Yale University campus in 1969.
Using Lippincott, Inc., a fabrication firm, he made some of the objects in metal such as Geometric Mouse and Colossal Ashtray and in 1976, a forty-foot clothespin in Philadelphia.
His work has been shown in many exhibitions of Pop and contemporary art including the 1964 Venice Biennale.
Sources include:
ARTnews
Peter Falk, Who Was Who in American Art
Matthew Baigell, Dictionary of American Art |
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Claes Oldenburg is also mentioned in these AskART essays:
Modernism
Sculptors
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