Claes Oldenburg “Pile of Erasers” Print

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Claes Oldenburg   American, b. Sweden, 1929

Pile of Erasers   1975

color lithograph on handmade HMP paper

23 x 29 in.; unframed

Edition of 75

Printed by Landfall Press, Chicago

Published by Landfall Press and the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis

For decades, American Pop artist Claes Oldenburg, creator of the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden’s iconic Spoonbridge and Cherry (1985–1988), has employed his characteristic approach of exaggerating everyday objects, such as hamburgers and electric plugs, through shifts in scale, texture, and material. In this print, he renders a pile of typewriter erasers soft and pliable with the gestural marks of his lithograph crayon. “The typewriter eraser is a low object… an anti-heroic object, especially when it gets used quite a bit,” the artist says. “I don’t often use them. When I make a mistake, I just leave it on the page because sometimes it’s quite interesting.”

Image caption: © Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen