Claes Oldenburg has become one of America's most influential artists. His subject-matter is the everyday object - food, clothing and mechanical devices - which he reincarnates in provocative sculpture, drawings and performances. This comprehensive volume, published to accompany a retrospective exhibition of his works organized jointly by the National Gallery of Art, Washington, and the Guggenheim Museum, New York, spans Oldenburg's entire career, from his earliest work devoted to the street life of New York, to "The Store", an array of painted, plaster sculptures of food and clothing, and to his soft sculptures, drawings for fanciful monuments, and large-scale public projects made with Coosje van Bruggen. This book was produced with the assistance of Oldenburg, and contains a selection of his own writings, as well as many previously-unpublished photographs.