Sculptor, draughtsman, commercial designer, performance artist and writer who is Swedish by birth but has adopted American nationality. Between 1946 and 1950 he studied at Yale University in New Haven, moving to New York in 1956, where he painted compositions strongly influenced by Abstract Expressionism. Two years later, he was part of a group that challenged this current through the use of figurative images and waste material. In 1959, he held his first one-man show at the Judson Gallery in New York in which he presented figurative drawings and papier maché sculptures. His involvement with materialist culture as a working theme, gave him a leading position in Pop Art. In 1964 and 1968, he took part in the Venice Biennale. In 1965, he became especially interested in designs and projects for imaginary outdoor monuments, the first to be realised in three-dimension being Lipstick Ascending, on Caterpillar Tracks which was installed opposite the Beinecke Rare Book Library at Yale University in 1969. Between 1968 and 1982, he took part in documenta 4, 6 and 7, in Kassel. The desire to produce democratic art, accessible to all, led Oldenburg to experiment with the techniques of commercial printing where he proved to be a considerable innovator. In the 70s, he concentrated almost exclusively on creations for public spaces, as a means of escaping from what he considered the commercial manipulation of his work by the art market.
