Page 35 - Studio International - June 1970

Chronology of drawings

Claes Oldenburg

From the time of arrival in New York, June
1 1956, until late 1958, the drawings (now
mostly destroyed) are exercises in technique
on a very small scale, using imaginary sub-
jects or small things observed in the studio:
razor blades, corks, bottle-caps, pencils, etc.
In 1958, I spent many hours walking and
bicycling in the streets, returning to my flat
to note down what I had seen, in words and
drawings. 1958 was divided between such
drawings and sketches of friends who offered
to pose for me.
In early 1959, Pat Muschinski became my
favourite model [later my wife].
Pat's movements are rapid and linear, and
my drawings changed as a result from a tonal
conception suited to painting sketches to a
linear one—to an attempt to realize deep
space by a tonal line. I settled on a grease
crayon as the best instrument for realizing
light-space through line.
By the summer of 1959, I had a certain
mastery of this impressionist line technique,
which I used in several drawings from the
landscape near Lenox, Mass., where Pat and
I spent the summer months.
Style in drawing is re-creation in shorthand
and graph, the terms of one's physical vision.
I was trying to make an abstract of my vision.
On analysis, my vision proved to be far-
sighted and 'around' objects and sharp as to
small detail. My eyes are also very sensitive to
light. Of course, the temperament, as instru-
mented by the hand (right one in my case),
affects the drawings. In my. case: instantan-
eous, impulsive, with the slower action of
criticism coming in the saving or destruction
of the drawings afterwards.
It is characteristic of all my drawings that the
paper 'opens up' and that its whiteness (or
blackness) is regarded as an area or space of drawing of early 1959 was impressionistic
Street Event—Woman Beating Child 1958
light and atmosphere, in which energies, and/or analytical of my vision. I wanted now Pen and watercolour
represented by the dot, crystallize in forms to use a technique more expressive of its x 5 in.
Coll: The artist
partially suggested by outline. subject—which was 'the street', the dominant
At the end of the summer of 1959, I was back and most affecting environment for me at that
in the city, and prepared to give up painting time.
with oils on canvas—in which the linear I turned my vision down—the paper became a
technique and deep-space vision had caused metaphor for the pavement, its walls (gutters
the colour to suffer or be eliminated. I turned and fences). I drew the materials found on the
from painting to solids, constructions. street—including the human. A person on the
From this time I have avoided flat painting, street is more of the street than he is a human.
though I have coloured my constructions and The drawing at this time takes on an 'ugli-
used colour in drawings (usually water- ness' which is a mimicry of the scrawls and
colours). patterns of street graffiti. It celebrates ir-
On returning from Lenox, I began to empha- rationality, disconnection, violence and stun-
size attitudes and feelings to a greater degree ted expression—the damaged life forces of the
in the drawings. My choice of subjects had city street. In the street environment at the
always displayed some engagement, but the Judson in early 1960, I attempted an identifi-