Appropriate Size Oldenburg Good Humor Bars, 2025

four good humor ice cream bar sculptures made of fake fur fabric in animal skin patterns, but garish colors, against a black background. by claes oldenburg
Claes Oldenburg, Soft Fur Good Humors, 1963, fake fur, filling, enamel paint on wood, posted by @toytheatre via @octavio-world

When I saw these 1963 Claes Oldenburg Soft Fur Good Humors on @toytheatre via @octavio-world‘s tumblr the other day, I thought they were perfect. But then I found out, from Barbara Rose’s 1969 MoMA catalogue, that they’re too small, just 19 x 9 1/2 x 2 inches each, barely the size of a placemat.

four good humor ice cream bar sculptures made of fake fur fabric in animal skin patterns, but garish colors, against a black background. by claes oldenburg
Claes Oldenburg’s too small Soft Fur Good Humors, 1963, as illustrated in the catalogue for Oldenburg’s 1969 exhibition at MoMA, curated by Barbara Rose

Oldenburg said that the inspiration came from seeing the fake fur at a fabric store, so maybe this is all he could get. Within a couple of years, though, he recognized that a Good Humor Bar sculpture should be bigger. He proposed one for the middle of Park Avenue, where the Pan-Am Building eventually went. Too big, tbqh.

a watercolor sketch of a giant chocolate good humor bar iwth a bite taken out of it, shoved upside down between the skyscrapers of park avenue, a proposal for a giant monument by claes oldenburg.
Claes Oldenburg, Colossal Monument for Park Avenue, Good Humor Bar, 1965, liberated from p*nterest

In 1972, Oldenburg’s friend Michael Crichton commissioned Oldenburg to make a 3.6m tall version of his 1970 Soft Alphabet Good Humor Bar print, which, frankly, seems like a mistake, both in scale and subject. It looks like when you pop leftover mac & cheese out of the Tupperware. I hope he was handsomely paid, as was whoever sold it to Crystal Bridges.

a geeky young claes oldenburg poses for a photo in the parking lot of the virginia dwan gallery in los angeles in 1963. he wears a brown plaid shirt and pants in a forgettable dark color. he rests his arm on the roof of a dark blue vw beetle that has some damage to the front fender. sitting on top of the car is oldenburg's 1962 sculpture, floor cone, an ice cream cone made of roughly painted canvas, green for the ice cream and tan for the cone, all stuffed with, I believe moma conservators said it was stuffed with thousands of cardboard ice cream cups, but it looks lumpy and a bit pathetic in form, but absolutely magical in scale and subject. an 11-ft long masterpiece made even better by being placed on the roof of a similarly scaled car. the buildings are white and inelegant, the sun is bright the sky is cloudless blue image via the artists and moma
Claes Oldenburg with Floor Cone, 1962, on top of his car at Dwan Gallery in LA in 1963, image via the artists’ studio via MoMA, Floor Cone is now at MoMA, obv

No, I think these Oldenburg Soft Fur Good Humors should be at least as big as a sleeping bag, but not too big to fit on the roof of your VW. Floor Cone is 3.5m, almost the same size as the Crystal Bridges one, but good. And on the floor.

a grid of black and white installation photof of people standing around and climbing on a large square sofa made of carved out foam blocks, and a title card superimposed that reads, john chamberlain f_____g couches, from the archives of american art's leo castelli gallery collection

If each Oldenburg Soft Fur Good Humor was roughly the size of the raft in Titanic. So depending on where you come down in that debate, four on the floor could fit between four and eight people. They would have roughly the same presence in a room as a Chamberlain F*****g Couch. Or two.

This feels like a needed corrective in the material record and a worthwhile work to realize.