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This sensuous and playful scene is characteristic of Oldenburg’s printmaking ouevre: a veritable heap of women displaying various expressions of ecstasy and repose. The loose sketches were drawn directly onto the plate by the artist, a master draftsman whose erotic etchings are largely unknown. The composition is based on the drawing: Clinical Study, Towards a Heroic-Erotic Monument in the Academic/Comic Style, 1965, ball-point pen on paper, 20 x 40 in. / 60 x 101.6 cm.
Oldenburg had an interest in imaginary monuments: he famously conceptualized works such as “Ball”, an unbuilt monument conceived of in 1967 which imagined two ballcocks – the round mechanism in a toilet tank – floating in London’s river Thames, regulating the flow of water usually controlled by the tide, and blocking maritime traffic.
Study for a Monument in the Heroic/Erotic/Academic/Comic Style, 1975.
Etching in one color on white, thick, lightly textured (2) Wookey Hole hand-made paper
Plate: 25½ × 32 ½ in. / 64.8 x 82.9 cm Sheet: 37¾ x 41¾ in. / 94.5 x 106 cm
Edition of 60 with 12 Artist’s Proofs (2 copies in each of all six colors. Includes 10 prints in each of 6 different ink colors: Indigo blue, Mauve, Burnt sienna, Astral blue, Yellow-ochre, Vermilion) Signed in graphite, lower right, dated in pencil, lower right, numbered in graphite, lower left; copyright blind stamp, lower right. Printed by Maurice Payne at Petersburg Press, London. Published by Petersburg Press, London and New York.
Your purchase will include a copy in the color of your choosing. See photographs for the six options.
Condition: Some wear on paper edges, various small creases, and waviness/aging of paper tone commensurate with age, as photographed
Catalogue reference: Printed Stuff: Prints, Posters and Ephemera by Claes Oldenburg A Catalogue Raisonné 1958-1996 Hudson Hills Press in association with Madison Art Center Wisconsin, New York, 1997. Illustrated no. 122
Literature: Boorsch. Suzanne. “New Editions: Claes Oldenburg.” Art News 74. no. 7 (September 1975). P. 51; Frackman. Noel. “Review: Oldenburg at Petersburg Press.”
Arts Magazine 50, no. 3 (November 1975), pp. 13-14; Drawings—Stedelijk, pp. 49; Drawings—Pompidou, p. 49
Exhibition History: Oldenburg: New Editions (1975)
