Soft Shuttlecocks on Ground
Framed: 30 5/8 × 42 3/8 × 1 5/8 inches (77.79 × 107.63 × 4.13 cm)
In 1992, Claes Oldenburg and his wife and collaborator Coosje van Bruggen were commissioned by the Sosland family to create a sculpture for The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art. The pair designed four giant birdies or Shuttlecocks that were placed as though they had just landed on opposite sides of the Museum-as-net.
Soft Shuttlecocks on Ground is one of many preparatory drawings and models created during the commission. Together, these works document the evolving ideas and forms that culminated in Shuttlecocks. This drawing inspired a later related sculpture, Soft Shuttlecock (1995), in the collection of New York’s Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum.
Purchased from Pace Gallery, NY, NY by Estelle and Morton Sosland;
Promised Gift, 2009;
Bequeathed by Estelle and Morton Sosland to The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 2021.
Oldenburg, Claes and van Bruggen, Coosje, "Large-Scale Projects," The Monacelli Press, 1994.
Oldenburg, Claes and van Bruggen, Coose, "Sculpture By The Way," Castello di Rivoli Museum of Contemporary Art, Rivoli-Turin, October 25, 2006-February 25, 2007, Skira Editore S.p.A., 2006.
