The Latest Breaking News from Claes Oldenburg

Robert Vas Dias writes: When it came to my turn up at bat, I swung at the ball and failed to hit it, because the bat folded in half in mid-swing

CHICAGO — Not everyone liked the things that artist Claes Oldenburg made, which were gigantic sculptures of such commonplace items as a hamburger, a lipstick case, clothespin, ice cream cone, pretzel, ironing board, teddy bear, aspirin, and a very, very big bat in Chicago.

As a Swedish immigrant child in Chicago, Claes Oldenburg dreamed up an imaginary world in intricately detailed drawings. As a founding father of Pop art, he focused on real objects of the most ordinary kind — vacuum cleaners, lipstick tubes, sun hats, typewriter erasers — and re-envisioned them as massive…

The Swedish-born Oldenburg drew on the sculptor’s eternal interest in form, by reimagining ordinary items in fantastic contexts.

The Swedish-born, New York City-based artist was famed for his gargantuan renditions of prosaic objects — a lipstick, a clothespin, a cherry perched on a spoon — installed as public art.

Artist had been in poor health since falling and breaking his hip a month ago

The most influential pop art artists challenged tradition by using imagery from popular culture.