Claes Oldenburg

Claes Oldenburg (1929–2022) was a Swedish-born American artist and a central figure of Pop Art, renowned for transforming everyday objects into monumental sculptures. From hamburgers and lipsticks to ice cream cones and typewriters, his playful enlargements of the ordinary blurred the line between consumer culture and fine art, making the familiar appear both humorous and profound.

After studying at Yale and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Oldenburg emerged in the early 1960s New York avant-garde with his experimental “Happenings” and The Store, where he sold handmade plaster consumer goods. His fascination with scale, material, and popular imagery continued throughout his career, often in collaboration with his wife and artistic partner Coosje van Bruggen. Together they produced iconic public works such as Clothespin (Philadelphia), Spoonbridge and Cherry (Minneapolis), and the Binoculars Building (Los Angeles).

Celebrated in major museums and collections worldwide, Oldenburg redefined sculpture with humour, accessibility, and imagination. His art endures as a bold reimagining of modern life, elevating the everyday into the monumental.