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Claes OldenburgStudy for Tongue Cloud Over London with Thames Ball (framed original drawing)1975
1975
About the Item
This gestural Claes Oldenburg drawing features subdued watercolor hues of green, orange, brown and grey. Pictured is “Ball”, an unbuilt monument conceived of in 1967 with Oldenburg’s wife Coosje van Bruggen. They imagined two ballcocks – the round mechanism in a toilet tank – floating in the river Thames, regulating the flow of water usually controlled by the tide, and blocking maritime traffic. Over the river he sketched the outline of a giant tongue emerging from the clouds. The artist made this drawing in particular while working in London at Petersburg Press on a series of etchings including Tongue Cloud over London with Thames Ball. Oldenburg returned to this motif, including for the etching “Tongue Cloud over St. Louis” depicting the tongue cloud and a giant piece of raisin bread raining over the city.
Drawing with watercolor on paper
Paper 29 x 23 in. / 74 x 58 cm
Wood frame 40.25 x 33.25 x 2 in. / 102 x 84.5 x 5 cm with 1 in. moulding
Signed by the artist lower right “Orig by CO”
Claes Oldenburg‘s unbuilt “Monuments” are imaginary large sculptures meant to sarcastically “celebrate” various people, places, events or concepts that Oldenburg perceived as negative. To that end, the designs were antithetical to the city’s landscape. Other monument projects included “Proposed Monument for the Intersection of Canal Street and Broadway, N.Y.C.- Block of Concrete with the Names of War Heroes“, which consisted of an enormous hunk of concrete completely blocking the intersection. Another project meant for New York City’s Park Avenue involved two gigantic bowling balls that would roll down the street, flattening everything in their wake.
In the words of the artist: “Many of my monuments reintroduce the idea of the monument as obstacle or disruption in the city. Many monuments, of course, are exactly that: the Arc de Triomphe, for one, is an aggressive obstacle in that traffic must be rerouted around it. So is my War Memorial: I wanted it to be like a wound in the city. Studies have indicated, in fact, that the intersection of Canal and Broadway, where the memorial would be, is the perfect spot to drop the H-bomb in order to create maximum damage and fallout throughout the New York area” (from an interview with poet and editor Paul Carroll, 1968)
- Creator:Claes Oldenburg (1929, American, Swedish)
- Creation Year:1975
- Dimensions:Height: 40.25 in (102.24 cm)Width: 33.25 in (84.46 cm)Depth: 2 in (5.08 cm)
- Medium:
- Movement & Style:
- Period:
- Condition:Frame in generally good condition: various scuffs on glass lower right edge and upper left corner edge of glass. 2" by 1 mm shallow scratch in the middle of the glass. Several small scuffs lower left frame corner. Dent left middle of frame moulding.
- Gallery Location:New York, NY
- Reference Number:1stDibs: LU121127278812
Claes Oldenburg
One of the original Pop artists, Claes Oldenburg was born in Stockholm. The son of a Swedish diplomat, he spent his early years in Stockholm and Oslo until the family moved to Chicago in 1937.
Oldenburg attended Yale University, then returned to Chicago, where he worked for a newspaper and also attended drawing classes at the Art Institute. He moved to New York in 1956.
Oldenburg’s early art in New York were works of urban realism in cardboard and paper that were influenced by the work of Dubuffet and the New Realists, and were seen as a brutal response to society. In 1961 Oldenburg rented a storefront on the Lower East Side and sold brightly painted plaster objects as well as three-dimensional and wall reliefs based on hamburgers, pastries, men's and women's clothing, and other commodities. The signature soft sculptures followed, objects of commonplace household objects made of vinyl or canvas stuffed with kapok. These pieces transformed the medium — the soft sculptures are intended to be sensual experiences and commentary on our material world of objects and our relationship to them.
In 1965, still working in vinyl, plaster and cardboard, Oldenburg began making large works termed “Colossal Monuments,” which are large public sculptures with public and private meanings. In the 1970s, Oldenburg was fabricating large-scale works in durable materials such as steel, and working with Coosje van Bruggen, he had received many such public commissions in the United States and Europe.
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(Biography provided by Art Commerce)
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