A prominent Pop artist, Claes Oldenburg’s signature sculptures depict everyday objects such as French fries, telephones, and hot water bottles, made from soft materials including latex and canvas. Oldenburg eventually began to create large-scale public installations, many of which were created in collaboration with Coosjie Van Bruggen, whom he later married. Born in Stockholm in 1929, the artist’s family moved to Chicago in 1936. He studied literature and art history at Yale University and later took fine art classes at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. In 1956, he moved to New York where he met a number of artists, including Allan Kaprow and Jim Dine, and soon became involved in Happenings. In 1961, he opened The Store, a shop in which he displayed his sculptures of mass-produced, consumer goods. Oldenburg has had solo exhibitions at the Moderna Museet Stockholm, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, and the Tate Gallery, London, and retrospectives at the Guggenheim Museum, New York, the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York.