The Whitney Museum of American Art has acquired the world's moss compre hensive collection of Claes Oldenburg drawings, as well as Oldenburg's coliaboratians with Co0sje van Bruggen. Claes Oldenburg Drawings in the Whitney Museum of American Art reproduces the Whitney s entire collection of ninety-two drawings, spanning the artist's career, and accompanies the Whitney exhibition of' the same title, the largest exhibition since 1977 dewted olely to Oldenburg's draftsmanship, Featuring an interview with Oldenburg ar an introduction by Janie C. Lee, Whitney curator of drawings, this volume promises to stand as the seminal work on the drawings of an iconic artist. It is the second in the Whitney Museum of American Art's series of catalogues showeasing the work of great living American draftsmen.

Best known for recasting familiar objects in unfamiliar textures, media, and dimensions, Claes Oldenburg has long challenged his audience to rethink the everyday with works such as French Fries and Ketchup (1963) and Soft Toilet (1966). Oldenburg's masterful drawings reveal another facet of this pioneering artist, inviting viewers to enter his "fantasy" as they explore Oldenburg's relationship with the medium, from sensitive early explorations to veteran campaigns as a refined and accomplished draftsman.

Drawing is crucial to Oldenburg's art: drawings note the beginning of an idea;they develop the thought; they give birth to his sculptures. The medium offers a flexibility particularly suited to the artist's extraordinary visions, enhancing the effectiveness of his manipulations of scale and perspective in sculpture.Pieces such as Proposed Colossal Monument for Central Park North, N.Y.C.--Teddy Bear (1965); Various Positions of a Giant Lipstick to Replace the Fountain of Eros, Piccadilly Circus, London (1966); Proposal for a Cathedral in the Form of a Colossal Faucet, Lake Union, Seattle (1972); and Blueberry Pie a la Mode, Sliding down a Hill (1996) usher viewers into a chimerical world of the mundane made significant.

Foreword

Maxwell L. Anderson

Introduction

Janie C. Lee

Interview with Claes Oldenburg

Janie C. Lee

Plates

Works in the Exhibition

Selected Drawings Bibliography

Acknowledgments