Standing Mitt with Ball, Half Scale, 6 Feet
1973
Image not available — this artwork is under copyright
View on museum website →Medium
lead, steel, and laminated wood
Dimensions
overall: 193 x 119.4 x 66 cm (76 x 47 x 26 in.)
Classification
Sculpture
Department
CMC
Museum
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Credit
Gift of Edward R. Broida
Accession Number
2005.142.30
Art Historical Context
Claes Oldenburg's *Standing Mitt with Ball, Scale, 6 Feet* (1973) is a monumental sculpture that transforms a humble baseball mitt and ball into a towering, 6-foot-tall icon of American everyday life. A key figure in the Pop Art of the 1960s and 1970s, Oldenburg the lines between high art and consumer culture by enlarging ordinary objects to absurd, heroic scales. This work, part of his series on sports equipment, captures the playful energy of baseball—a quintessential U.S. pastime—while challenging viewers to reconsider the familiar. Crafted from lead, steel, and laminated wood, the sculptu...
About the Artist
Claes Oldenburg
Claes Oldenburg, born January 28, 1929, in Stockholm, Sweden, to diplomat Gösta Oldenburg and Sigrid Elisabeth Lindforss, spent much of his childhood abroad before his family settled in Chicago in 1936, where his father served as Swedish consul general. He attended the Latin School of Chicago, then studied literature and art history at Yale University from 1946 to 1950, followed by classes at the ...