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Quote by Claes Oldenburg

“I got a little studio in Chicago and practiced. I realized I had to earn some money. So I went to work for an advertising agency where my job was mostly drawing insects for a company that sold an insecticide spray.”

Quote by Claes Oldenburg

Author

Claes Oldenburg

Claes Oldenburg is a renowned American sculptor, known for his large-scale public art installations. His works are inspired by everyday objects, reimagined and magnified to create both familiar and unfamiliar visual experiences. more

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“I knew I had to take my ambition more seriously, so I enrolled at the Art Institute of Chicago. Then, in the fall, I went on a tour of my own. I didn't go to New York because that was too well known for its art scene.”

Wells Art Fall My Own Known New York Scene Ambition Chicago Well Known Institute My Ambition

Author:Claes Oldenburg

“I got a job as a dishwasher in Oakland, and I would draw all day. It was nice because the lady who ran the boardinghouse where I worked let me live there for nothing if I gave her some drawings every week - mostly park drawings of birds and such.”

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“I went back to the Art Institute, then spent the summer at the Ox-Bow School in Saugatuck, Michigan. That's what really awakened me. I made a lot of oil paintings and my first performance.”

Firsts Art Made School Painting Summer Performances Oil Bows Awakened Institute Michigan Oil Painting

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“Ox-Bow was a very free place, very open. You could do whatever you wanted to do.”

Author:Claes Oldenburg

“I just started to do my own thing for about a year and a half, and I worked in the evening selling phonograph records. Then I said to myself, "I'm afraid I have to go to New York after all."”

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“You can take an object and simply put anything you want in that object, and I accessed that partly through Freudian ideas.”

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Author:Claes Oldenburg

“It was easy to get a job at the Cedar Bar because people came and went, but I didn't like the atmosphere. Instead, I got a job at Cooper Union Library. I stayed at Cooper Union for seven years; it was my salvation. While I worked there, I also read books of every kind.”

People Years Kind Book Jobs Easy Salvation Unions Seven Library Bars Atmosphere Seven Years Easy To Get Cedars

Author:Claes Oldenburg

“In 1958 I finally found a large enough apartment on the Lower East Side, where I reverted to figure painting. I drew and painted quite a lot of figures and nudes. People would come and pose for me.”

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Author:Claes Oldenburg

“Judson Church was a very important place because they believed in art. They also took care of drug addicts. Without the Judson, nothing could have happened.”

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Author:Claes Oldenburg

“They asked me to do a show, and I was planning on showing my figure paintings. But my friends told me I shouldn't - the paintings were good but a little old-fashioned. They said, "Why don't you show the other stuff?" I had also been making rather strange objects, more in the Freudian tradition.”

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Author:Claes Oldenburg