“We all deserve a treat during the dog days of August, and who better to serve it up than artworld prankster, Claes Oldenburg? Oldenburg humorously transforms familiar things through shifts in scale and media. In this work, the fleshy letters that form a melting ice cream bar recall his soft canvas sculptures from the previous decade. The artist notes that ‘swollen letters signify the affluence that advertises a good store’; his witty melding of language and food points to the importance of language in the marketing of consumer foodstuffs. Bon appetit!”
—Mary Weaver Chapin, Curator of Prints and Drawings
Claes Oldenburg (American, born Sweden, active United States, born 1929). Alphabet in the Form of a Good Humor Bar, 1970. Color lithograph on paper. Gift of Mr. Ronald Shindler and Mr. Lowell Shindler, 81.107.2 © Claes Oldenburg/Coosje Van Bruggen
