Claes Oldenburg: Drawn from Life | Art & Artists
July 5, 2025–
Claes Oldenburg: Drawn from Life | Art & Artists
The Street
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Suggested Design for a Brochure Announcing Ray Gun Show at the Judson Gallery, 1960
Claes Oldenburg, Suggested Design for a Brochure Announcing Ray Gun Show at the Judson Gallery, 1960. Pastel, wax crayon, typewriter ink, and graphite pencil on paper, 8 3/8 × 10 3/4 in. (21.3 × 27.3 cm). Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; purchase with funds from The Lauder Foundation, Evelyn and Leonard Lauder Fund for the Acquisition of Master Drawings and the Drawing Committee 99.114a-b. © Claes Oldenburg
Claes Oldenburg often created promotional materials for his exhibitions, explaining: "I regard poster making as an art in itself." This design began as an announcement for the unrealized Ray Gun Gallery he conceived with fellow artists Jim Dine and Richard O. Tyler. The crudely rendered sci-fi weapon ultimately apeared in Oldenburg's posters for the Ray Gun exhibition at the Judson Gallery featuring his environment The Street (1960). Composed of scavenged cardboard and newspaper embellished with black contour lines, the Judson installation responded to the squalid conditions on the Lower East Side and inspired related Street drawings and collages.