Claes Oldenburg: Six Themes — Claes Oldenburg

The Estate of Claes Oldenburg & Coosje van Bruggen and Paula Cooper Gallery, New York, will present a major exhibition of sculpture, drawings and prints by Claes Oldenburg in the Fall of 2026. The exhibition will revisit Six Themes, the landmark survey show organized by Martin Friedman for the Walker Art Center in 1975 and which travelled to the Denver Art Museum; Seattle Art Museum; New Orleans Museum of Art; and the Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, in 1975–1976.

Six Themes gathered artwork in various media that investigated six “themes” or subjects: Geometric Mouse; Three-Way Plug; Fagends; Clothespin; Typewriter Eraser; and Standing Mitt with Ball. As adopted by Oldenburg, each subject proved endlessly inspiring, and the six “themes” are among the artist’s most celebrated works. Prominent public examples include Typewriter Eraser, Scale X, on view in the Sculpture Garden at the National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.; Clothespin in Center Square, Philadelphia; Giant Three-Way Plug (Cube Cap) installed at the Philadelphia Museum of Art and at the Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin; and Geometric Mouse in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, New York, and the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis.

Oldenburg selected his themes primarily for their form and also for their versatility. In his words, “a requirement of any subject is that it be extremely adaptable, especially in scale, so that a small clothespin would be as interesting as a clothespin a hundred feet high.”[1] The objects are ordinary and ubiquitous, albeit now obsolete in the case of the Typewriter Eraser. The exception is the Geometric Mouse, a subject Oldenburg developed from the form of a movie projector seen in profile into a symbol of “analysis and intellect” that stands in for the artist himself. Each is an inherently undramatic subject, animated through Oldenburg’s choice of materials and processes into radically different interpretations of a single theme.[2]

Oldenburg rarely used a found object. “I always rebuilt the whole thing, and that way I had it both ways. It was a work of art and an object.”[3] The rebuilding developed over time with fabricators across the United States, in particular Lippincott, Inc. in North Haven, CT, who produced large-scale renditions of Fagends, Clothespin, Typewriter Eraser, and Geometric Mouse. A vitrine with images from the Lippincott archive show the fabrication of works in the exhibition, a process Oldenburg described as “a form of object-in-theater––like the Happenings.”[4] Collaboration was important to Oldenburg, for whom “the joy of my work is to see the object develop out of the interaction of materials and people.”[5]

Claes Oldenburg: Six Themes will be the first exhibition to focus on this important body of work in fifty years. Gathering significant artworks on each theme, including works owned by the artist’s estate and loans from public and private collections, the exhibition will also be accompanied by an illustrated brochure with a text by David Platzker.

On Saturday, November 14th at 11:00 AM, Rachel Harrison and Alex Kitnick will lead a guided walkthrough of the exhibition. __ [1] Claes Oldenburg in Oldenburg: Six Themes, exh cat., Martin Friedman, ed. (Minneapolis: Walker Art Center, 1975), p. 10 [2] Ibid, p. 25. [3] Ibid, p. 10. [4] Ibid, p. 9. [5] Ibid, p. 9.

Claes Oldenburg Study for a Civic Sculpture in the Form of a Mitt and Ball, 1974 toy glove and ball, nails, wood, painted with spray enamel, pencil 8 1/2 x 11 1/2 x 10 in. (21.6 x 29.2 x 25.4 cm)

Claes Oldenburg Notebook Page: Typewriter Eraser, New York, 1968 Ballpoint pen and clippings 4 13/16 x 2 13/16 in. (12.2 x 7.1 cm) on sheet 11 x 8 1/2 in. (27.9 x 21.6 cm)

Claes Oldenburg Geometric Mouse - Scale C, 1971 anodized aluminum 8 x 10 3/4 x 8 in. (20.3 x 27.3 x 20.3 cm)

Claes Oldenburg Model for a Mahogany Plug, Scale B, 1969 plywood and Masonite, painted with latex 59 x 39 x 28 1/2 in. (149.9 x 99.1 x 72.4 cm)

Claes Oldenburg & Coosje van Bruggen Fagend Study, Prototype, 1976 cast aluminum painted with enamel 10 x 18 1/2 x 9 1/4 in. (25.4 x 47 x 23.5 cm)

Claes Oldenburg Clothespin – 4 Ft. – Soft Version, 1975 canvas painted with latex and filled with kapok with metal hanger and wooden clothespins 56 1/2 x 16 x 4 in. (143.5 x 40.6 x 10.2 cm)