The Sculpture Team: Claes Oldenburg and Coosje Van Bruggen

Sheldon Art Gallery's new outdoor sculpture, "Torn Notebook" is a collaboration between artists Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen. Claes Oldenburg, who lives and works in New York City, is one of the best-known artists associated with the pop art movement of the 1960's. Born in Sweden in 1929, he has resided in the United States almost continuously since 1930. Oldenburg studied at Yale University (1946-50) and the Art Institute of Chicago (1950-54).

Beginning in the late 1950's, Oldenburg, Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein and other pop artists reacted against the introspective character of Abstract Expressionist painting and looked, instead, to popular culture as a source for their imagery. Common household objects became the primary source of inspiration for Oldenburg. Subsequently he has created an artistic vocabulary based on everyday objects, altering their size, material and texture in unexpected ways and creating bold, often humorous sculptures. Oldenburg's series of "Hard" and "Soft" sculptures, modeled after such objects as sinks, drum sets and toothpaste tubes, are celebrated not only for their playfulness but for an ambiguity that borders on the surreal.

Oldenburg's collaboration with his wife, Coosje van Bruggen, (American, born in the Netherlands, 1942) on large-scale sculpture projects began in 1976 with Giant Trowel, installed on the grounds of the Kroller-Muller Museum in Otterlo, The Netherlands. The two met in 1970 at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, where van Bruggen was a member of the staff. From 1971 to 1976, she taught at the Academy of Fine Arts in Enschede, The Netherlands. An art historian and writer, van Bruggen has written monographs on artists Bruce Nauman and John Baldessari.

Oldenburg and van Bruggen have collaborated on more than 20 large-scale sculptures throughout the United States and Europe. Among notable examples of their work in this country are the 100-foot-high baseball bat, or Batcolumn, installed in front of Chicago's Social Security Administration Building and the giant Clothespin sculpture that has adorned Centre Square in Philadelphia since 1976. In 1988, they completed Spoonbridge and Cherry, the joyous focal point of the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden at the Walker Art Center.

Oldenburg is represented in numerous museum collections including The Tate Gallery, London, the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, The Art Institute of Chicago, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art.