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Claes Oldenburg
Claes Oldenburg "Ice Bag" Lithograph of Sculpture Pop Art

1970

About the Item

SALE ONE WEEK ONLY Claes’ first kinetic sculpture, 1970, was “Ice Bag” rising in height from 7 to 16 feet with a diameter of 18 feet. He was interested in ice bags as a sculptural subject because of their compelling form. The surface wavers between rippled and smooth, hard and soft. This lithograph with blue and red crayon is a sketch of the “Ice Bag” sculpture and was created by Claes as a thank you gift for certain individuals. Eric Saarinin & Associates had rented an art studio to film Oldenburg sketching on its walls the genesis of the ice bag and his thoughts about the Icebag. When the owner of the studio returned and found his pristine walls covered with scrawls, he had a fit…until he understood the present value of that heavily marked, white expanse. They thought about how to remove the drawings. Well, it couldn’t be done, but they are preserved in the film directed by Michael Hugo and produced by Eric Saarinen. The Lithograph is printed by Kenneth Tyler, carries the blind stamp and is marked (Gem.II), G.E.L. It is numbered 2 of 26, dated and signed by Oldenburg and owned by Eric Saarinen who received it as a gift from Claes. Unframed it measures 16 1/8 x 22 5/16. Claes Oldenburg was a Swedish-born American sculptor, best known for his public art installations typically featuring large replicas of everyday objects. Another theme in his work is soft sculpture versions of everyday objects. Many of his works were made in collaboration with his wife, Coosje van Bruggen, who died in 2009; they had been married for 32 years. Oldenburg was born in Stockholm, Sweden, but because of his father’s diplomatic career he lived most of his life in the states mainly New York and California. He attended Yale University and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Oldenburg became associated with the pop art movement and created many happenings, that were so popular in the late 1960s and thru the 1970s. They were performance art related productions. The name he gave to his own productions was "Ray Gun “Theater”. The cast of colleagues who appeared in his performances included artists: Lucas Samaras, Tom Wesselmann, Carolee Schneemann, Oyvind Fahlstrom, Richard Artschwager, art gallerist Annina Nosei, critic Barbara Rose, and screenwriter Rudy Wurlitzer. Oldenburger’s first wife (1960 – 1970) Patty Mucha (Patricia Muchinski), sewed many of his early soft sculptures and was a constant performer in his happenings. Claes’ humorous and often brash approach to art was at great odds with the prevailing sensibility that art dealt with “profound” expressions or ideas. Oldenburg’s spirited art found a unique following then great popularity that endures to this day. He was a prolific artist with numerous exhibitions and public commissions beginning in the mid-60s and continuing into the 2000s. His large sculptures are found world-wide at major museums, on university campuses, and city centers. His first one-man show in 1959, at the Judson Gallery in New York, had shown figurative drawings and papier-mache sculptures. He was honored with a solo exhibition of his work at the Moderna Museet (organized by Pontus Hulten), in 1966; the Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1969; London’s Tate Gallery in 1970 and with a retrospective organized by Germano Celant at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, in 1995 (travelling to the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Kunst-und Asstellungshalle der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, Bonn; and Hayward Gallery, London.) In 2002 the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York held a retrospective of the drawings of Oldenburg and his second wife and collaborator, Coosje van Bruggen; the same year, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York exhibited a selection of their sculptures on the roof of the museum. He passed at 93 in July 2022 at his home in New York.
  • Creator:
    Claes Oldenburg (1929, American, Swedish)
  • Creation Year:
    1970
  • Dimensions:
    Height: 22.5 in (57.15 cm)Width: 29.5 in (74.93 cm)
  • Medium:
  • Movement & Style:
  • Period:
  • Condition:
  • Gallery Location:
    Detroit, MI
  • Reference Number:
    1stDibs: LU1286110567452
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