Claes Oldenburg was born in 1929 in Stockholm. His father was a diplomat, and the family lived in the United States and Norway before settling in Chicago in 1936.
Oldenburg studied literature and art history at Yale University, New Haven, from 1946 to 1950. He subsequently studied art under Paul Weighardt at the Art Institute
of Chicago from 1950 to 1954. Claes Oldenburg is from the first generation of Pop artists—including Hamilton, Robert Rauschenberg, Jasper Johns, Roy Lichtenstein,
Andy Warhol, Yayoi Kusama and Ed Ruscha. His work is collected by major museums worldwide. Oldenburg lives in New York.