CLAES OLDENBURG | KNIFE BLADE SLICING A HOUSEFRONT

Leo Castelli Gallery, New York

Margo Leavin Gallery, Los Angeles

Acquired from the above by the present owner in 1989

Germano Celant, Claes Oldenburg, Coosje van Bruggen and Frank O. Gehry, The Course of the Knife / Il Corso del Coltello, New York 1986, p. 84 (illustrated)

Claes Oldenburg, known for his large scale installations and soft sculptures, often chose objects such as fans, phones, and other household items as well as mundane objects from everyday life as his subject. His ideas were conceived through a series of sketches, often loose and gestural and some of which included notes and large text. 

“With Claes Oldenburg the act of drawing seems wholly natural, a reflex to his inner life and the world about him. Of course, he draws also quite deliberatively, in preparation for his work in sculpture; but his preoccupation with drawing—or, rather, the ways in which drawing serves his preoccupations—goes well beyond this practical necessity”

- Gene Baro, Claes Oldenburg: Drawings and Prints, London 1969, p.11