Claes Oldenburg (b. 1929, Stockholm) grew up in Chicago and attended Yale University (1946-50) before settling permanently in New York City in 1956. Influenced by his environs on the Lower East Side, he created a series of performances and installations such as The Street (1960) and The Store (1961) that established him as a leading figure in the Pop Art movement. Shifting his vision to The Home (1974), Oldenburg began a series of sewn and fabricated versions of ordinary household objects, later visualized in fantastic scale as "Proposed Colossal Monuments" for urban settings all over the world. In 1976, a 45-foot-tall sculpture in the form of a Clothespin was realized in downtown Philadelphia, the first such work in a 'feasible' scale.

In 1976, Oldenburg worked with Coosje van Bruggen for the first time on the reconstruction and relocation of the 41 foot tall Trowel I (1971-76)-originally shown at Sonsbeek 71-to the Kröller-Müller Museum grounds in Otterlo. Oldenburg and van Bruggen were married in 1977 and have continued their artistic collaboration for over 25 years. Both American citizens, Oldenburg and van Bruggen's work reflects a creative sensibility that is informed by their native countries of origin, their distinct educational and professional histories, and their individual personalities.

In May 2002, Oldenburg and van Bruggen installed four large-scale sculptures in the roof garden of the Metropolitan Museum of Art entitled Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen on the Roof. Later that summer, after announcing that they had acquired "the largest collection of Oldenburg drawings in the world", the Whitney Museum of American Art presented two consecutive drawing shows by the artists. Claes Oldenburg Drawings, 1959-1977, was the largest exhibition since 1977 dedicated to Oldenburg's early works, and Claes Oldenburg with Coosje van Bruggen Drawings, 1992-1998, featured the pair's larger-scale collaborative works on paper.

The artistic team has, to date, executed more than 40 permanently sited sculptures in architectural scale throughout the United States, Europe, and Japan, including Spoonbridge and Cherry (1988), Minneapolis; Mistos (Match Cover) (1992), Barcelona; Shuttlecocks (1994), Kansas City; Saw, Sawing (1996), Tokyo; Ago, Filo e Nodo (Needle, Thread and Knot) (2000), Milan; and most recently, the 40-foot-high Dropped Cone (2001) atop the Neumarkt Galerie in Cologne, Germany. Their collaboration has also encompassed smaller park and garden sculptures in addition to indoor installations.

Oldenburg and van Bruggen's work can be found in numerous public collections including: The Art Institute of Chicago, IL; the Chinati Foundation, Marfa, TX; the Dallas Museum of Art, TX; the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C.; The Israel Museum, Jerusalem; IVAM Centre Julio Gonzalez, Valencia; the Kunstmuseum Basel, Switzerland; the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art, CA; the Moderna Museet, Stockholm; the Musée national d'art moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, CA; the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; the Tate Gallery, London; the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York.

Oldenburg and van Bruggen currently live and work in downtown Manhattan, in California, and on a centuries-old estate in the Loire Valley, France, whose natural surroundings and cultural history have continued to inspire their work.