Claes Olderburg

CLAES OLDENBURG ((Stockholm, Sweden 1929 - New York, 2022).
"Oldenburg. Chicago Show. New constructions, models and drawings". Richard Feigen Gallery 1969.
Lithograph poster. Copy 7/180.
Hand signed and numbered.
Measurements: 93,5 x 63,5 cm.
Claes Oldenburg was a Swedish-American sculptor, a pioneer of Pop Art. He is best known for his public art installations which represent large-scale replicas of everyday objects. Another theme in his work is soft sculpture versions of normally hard objects.
Oldenburg was born in Stockholm, Sweden, and as a child moved with his family to the United States in 1939, first to New York and then to Chicago, where he graduated from the Latin School of Chicago. He studied at Yale University from 1946 to 1950, then returned to Chicago where he studied under the direction of Paul Wieghardt at the Art Institute of Chicago until 1954.2
While developing his art, he worked as a journalist trainee for the City News Bureau of Chicago. He opened his own studio and, in 1953, became a naturalised American citizen. He returned to New York in 1956. There he met a number of artists, including Jim Dine, Red Grooms, and Allan Kaprow, whose Happenings incorporated theatrical aspects and provided an alternative to the Abstract Expressionism that had come to dominate the art scene.
Oldenburg lived through the consolidation of the consumer society of the late 1950s in the USA and saw how people increasingly liked to be noticed, so the period was characterised by opulence. The world was beginning to evolve very quickly, thanks in part to the media, which changed the basis of human relations. Oldenburg and other artists, on this pretext, decided to use the countless possibilities of dissemination to convey messages through their works, because if their art is related to the social situation, it is easier to show and understand their compositions to the public.
In 1961 he opened his first shop, called El taller, where he sold painted plaster figures, usually of considerable size or natural form. They tended to be gastronomic products: fruits and kitchen or domestic utensils. At the beginning he only used soft and cheap materials.
After spending the first years of his artistic career on the Coger East Side, he settled in Broome Street (New York). His works have all the characteristics of Pop Art, as his creations are generally made from simple, readily available objects. His works are intended to communicate the artist with the public.
In 1977, the artist married the artist Coosje Van Bruggen. Since then, they have signed their works together, and Coosje advises and counsels the artist on his creations. In 1978, they took up residence in Broome Street, where they set up their own company after having restored and repaired two buildings on the street. There, they collected the artist's previous works, restored them and exhibited them in various places in the city. Even so, Oldenburg still maintains his artistic principles; he continues to use simple materials, creating his works in an industrial way, dealing with everyday goods, etc. His wife renamed some of Oldenburg's works from the 1960s and 1970s.
In the United States this art was born as an artistic reaction to Abstract Expressionism, as it was considered empty and elitist, it also brought with it the return of irony and parody to compensate for the personal symbolism found in Abstract Expressionism; in the mid-1950s it was born in the United Kingdom, in this case the origin of this art was the paradoxical imagination of American popular culture. However, Pop Art is also known as a continuation of some aspects of Abstract Expressionism, such as the belief in the possibilities of making art in large-scale works.