CLAES OLDENBURG & COOSJE VAN BRUGGEN | SOFT CLARINET FOLDED

Pace Gallery, New York

William Louis-Dreyfus, Mount Kisco, New York (acquired from the above in 1992)

The William Louis-Dreyfus Foundation (gift of the above in 2015)

Claes Oldenburg, known for his large scale installations and soft sculptures, often chose objects such as fans, phones, and other household items as well as mundane objects from everyday life as his subject. His ideas were conceived through a series of sketches, often loose and gestural and some of which included notes and large text. Many of Oldenburg’s works were made in collaboration with his wife, Coosje van Bruggen. 

“With Claes Oldenburg the act of drawing seems wholly natural, a reflex to his inner life and the world about him. Of course, he draws also quite deliberatively, in preparation for his work in sculpture; but his preoccupation with drawing- or, rather, the ways in which drawing serves his preoccupations- goes well beyond this practical necessity”

Gene Baro, Claes Oldenburg: Drawings and Prints, London 1969, p.11