I am for an art that imitates the human, that is comic, if necessary, or violent, or whatever is necessary. I am for an art that takes its form from the lines of life itself, that twists and extends and accumulates and spits and drips, and is heavy and coarse and blunt and sweet and stupid as life itself.

Installed at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in 2011 Paint Torch is a towering 53-foot-high pop sculpture of a paintbrush capped with bristles that are illuminated at night. From the early 1970s Oldenburg concentrated almost exclusively on public commissions. [citation needed]
In addition to freestanding projects they occasionally contributed to architectural projects among them two Los Angeles projects in collaboration with architect Frank O.

Claes Oldenburg (born January 28 1929) is an American sculptor best known for his public art installations typically featuring very large replicas of everyday objects. Many of his works were made in collaboration with his wife Coosje van Bruggen who died in 2009 after 32 years of marriage.