Profile

Sculptor, painter, performance artist. Born in Stockholm, Sweden, in 1929, Claes Oldenburg grew up in Chicago and graduated from Yale University in 1950. After studying at the Art Institute of Chicago, he settled permanently in New York City in 1956. First solo exhibition at the Judson Gallery in New York in 1959. Oldenburg participated in numerous exhibitions, including the 1964 and 1968 Venice Biennale, and the 4th, 6th and 7th Documenta in 1968, 1977 and 1982. During the 1960s, along with 'Happenings' at the time, he produced his 'soft sculptures', enlarging images of common everyday objects in plastic. His first architecturally scaled sculpture, the 45-foot-high Clothespin, was installed in downtown Philadelphia in 1976. Soon thereafter, he began working with Coosje van Bruggen(1942-2009), whom he married in 1977. Together they realized 44 site-specific sculptures in architectural scale for cities in the United States, Europe, Japan and Korea.