Claes Oldenburg Works

Soft Screw in Waterfall, from Soft Screw Lithographs, 1976

Lithograph on wove paper

67-3/8 x 45 inches

Ed. 15/35 (aside from 11 artist's proofs

Signed and editioned in pencil along lower edge; publisher's chop mark lower right

Published and printed by Gemini G.E.L., Los Angeles

LITERATURE:

Axsom & Platzker, 145;

Gemini G.E.L., 38.41.

Another impression of this work can be found in the collection of the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York.

Soft Drum Set, Lithograph 1972

Lithograph, 1972, on pale yellow Amgoumois à la main, signed with initials and dated in pencil, numbered 43/68 (there were also 6 artist's proofs), with the artist's and the Gemini G.E.L. blindstamps, Los Angeles, Axsom & Platzker,97

Cigarette Butt 1991

Lithograph in colors on Arches paper, signed in pencil and numbered 63/250, with the blindstamp of the publisher, Gemini G.E.L., Los Angeles, with full margins. Axsom & Platzker 230

10 x 10in (25.4 x 25.4cm) sheet 19 x 18 1/4in (48.2 x 46.4cm)

Footnotes

In 1990, Harvey Gantt, a Democrat, challenged the conservative Republican Jessie Helms (1921-2008) for the Senate and lost. Oldenburg's image of a stubbed out cigarette is an oblique reference to Helms' long-standing support for the tobacco industry, and the '10/10' in the print refers to the late photographer Robert Mapplethorpe's controversial Ten by Ten portfolio, which enraged the senator.

Typewriter Eraser 1970

offset lithograph in colors, on Rives BFK paper, 1970, signed and dated in pencil, numbered 147/250 (there were also twenty artist's proofs), published by Paul Bianchini, New York, with the artist's blindstamp, the full sheet, 19 x 81/8in Axsom & Platzker 64

Colossal structure in the form of a Clothespin 1972

Compared to Brancusi's Kiss screenprint in colors on Arches image: 21½ h × 13¾ w in (55 × 35 cm) sight: 24 h × 16 w in (61 × 41 cm)

With his saggy hamburgers, colossal clothespins and giant three-way plugs, Claes Oldenburg has been the reigning king of Pop sculpture since the early 1960s, back when New York was still truly gritty. In 1961, he rented a storefront, called it The Store, and stocked it with stuffed, crudely-painted forms resembling diner food, cheap clothing, and other mass-manufactured items that stupefied an audience accustomed to the austere, non-representational forms in Abstract Expressionist sculpture. These so-called "soft-sculptures" are now hailed as the first sculptural expressions in Pop art. While his work has continued to grow in scale and ambition, his focus has remained steadfast: everyday items are presented on a magnified scale that reverses the traditional relationship between viewer and object. Oldenburg shrinks the spectator into a bite-sized morsel that might be devoured along with a giant piece of cake, or crushed by an enormous ice pack. His work shows us just how small we are, and serves as a vehicle for his smart, witty, critical, and often wickedly funny insights on American culture over the past half-century.

Claes Oldenburg

1929 - 2022

Seraphin Gallery, Philadelphia, PA