Claes Oldenburg valuation

Claes Oldenburg (1929–2022) was born in Stockholm, the son of a Swedish diplomat, and grew up in Chicago after his father was appointed consul general there in 1936. He studied at Yale University and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, became an American citizen in 1953 and moved to New York in 1956. In December 1961 he opened The Store on the Lower East Side, an installation stocked with painted plaster versions of consumer goods, and through the 1960s he made soft sculptures of food, typewriters, toilets and light switches in vinyl and canvas, which placed him among the Pop artists. With his wife, Coosje van Bruggen, he made large public sculptures of everyday objects, among them Spoonbridge and Cherry (1988) at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis.

Unique sculptures and the large public works rarely change hands, so what most sellers hold is a multiple, a print or a drawing. He made many multiples, from soft objects in vinyl to cast and painted pieces, as well as lithographs, screenprints and etchings, and a buyer will want the title, date, edition size, number and publisher, and whether the piece is signed. Multiples in soft or plastic materials should be checked for cracking, discolouration and sagging, and works on paper for fading and staining. Drawings and studies for the monuments are collected in their own right.