Claes Oldenburg wife: Who was Coosje van Bruggen?

Coosje van Bruggen, was a sculptor, art historian, and critic from the Netherlands. Coosje Oldenburg was the wife of Claes Oldenburg, a Swedish-born American sculptor best known for his large-scale replicas of everyday objects.

Coosje van Bruggen met Claes Oldenburg in 1970 when Oldenburg’s first major retrospective visited the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, where van Bruggen was a curator.

She worked closely with her husband, Claes Oldenburg. Coosje van Bruggen,  died in 2009 after 32 years of marriage.

Van Bruggen was a senior critic in the sculpture department at Yale University School of Art from 1996 to 1997.

Van Bruggen and Oldenburg were based in New York for many years, but they also lived and worked in Los Angeles.

Coosje van Bruggen and her husband, Claes Oldenburg, received numerous awards, including the Sculpture Center’s Distinction in Sculpture (1994); the Nathaniel S. Saltonstall Award, Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston (1996)

They also received honorary degrees from the California College of the Arts, San Francisco.