One of the most loved artists of the Pop Art movement, Claes Oldenburg is generally known for his playful large-scale sculptures where everyday objects and recognizable items take new textures and shapes. In 1964, under publisher Rosa Esman´s request, he created his first print, a color lithograph titled Flying Pizza, which was included in the portfolio New York Ten together with works by Dine, Lichtenstein, Segal, and Wesselmann. From the 1970s to the late 1990s, Oldenburg produced a considerable body of etchings and lithographs. These works reveal his fascinating depictions of ordinary objects – like perfume bottles, matchsticks, foods, or light bulbs – which are rendered with anthropomorphic and oftentimes humorous characteristics. Among the subjects are several examples of the artist’s take on iconic symbols of American culture. Profiterole is a 5-color lithograph on Koller handmade paper, from an edition of 57. Here, as in many other works, Oldenburg cleverly appropriates a mundane subject and executes it in a comical and dynamic shape, resulting in a playful image. A veritable pillar of postwar art, Oldenburg is now collected by major museums around the world. Exhibitions have included Claes Oldenburg: The Sixties at the Museum Moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig Wien in Vienna, Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen: Theater and Installation 1985—1990 at Pace Gallery in New York, Claes Oldenburg: Early Sculpture, Drawings, and Happenings Films at the Whitney in 2009, as well as the 1964 and 1968 Venice Biennales.
“ Because my work is naturally non-meaningful, the meaning found in it will remain doubtful and inconsistent—which is the way it should be. All that I care about is that, like any piece of nature, it should be capable of stimulating meaning. „