Claes Oldenburg

with "Floor Cake", 1962 

Claes Oldenburg was a renowned Swedish American sculptor, best known for his public art installations featuring giant replicas of ordinary objects. He was a major pioneer of  soft sculptures , and had been known to have said, " When I see a plate of food, I see shapes and forms", which made food one of  many prominent themes  in his artistic practice. 

Mr. Oldenburg was a significant figure in the mid-20th century art world, as he was a key founder of the Pop Art movement. He was honored with countless solo exhibitions around the world, and his artworks are part of the permanent collections at prestigious museums such as New York's Museum of Modern Art, The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, and The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Mr. Oldenburg's artworks are also part of the permanent collect at Los Angeles' Museum of Contemporary Art, London's Tate Museum, the Stedelijk in Amsterdam, and Washington D.C's National Gallery of Art, to name a few.

 Mr. Oldenburg attended Yale University where he studied art history and literature and received honorary degrees from the Art Institute of Chicago, the Royal College of Art in 

London, Oberlin College in Ohio, Bard College in New York, and was awarded the National Medal of Arts in 2000. Claes Oldenburg was born in Stockholm, Sweden in 1929 and died in New York City in 2022.