Claes Oldenburg, whose oversized sculptures of everyday objects made him one of the leading artists of the Pop art movement, died in his home on Monday at 93. He had been recovering from a fractured hip. Representatives for Paula Cooper Gallery and Pace Gallery, both of which represent Oldenburg, confirmed the news.
Oldenburg, who often worked in collaboration with his late wife Coosje van Bruggen, made sculptures that raised objects as diverse as a nondescript light switch, a hamburger with a pickle on top, and a shuttlecock stood on its end to the status of high art. If spotted in the real word, none of these would be particularly big objects, but Oldenburg rendered them larger than life, literally, so that they loom over viewers’ heads.