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Throwback Thursday: origins of the Lipstick
Last week, we reported that Lipstick (Ascending) on Caterpillar Tracks, the iconic sculpture by Claes Oldenburg ’52, was removed from the Morse College courtyard for conservation work. It reminded us that the Yale Alumni Magazine played a role in the sculpture's genesis. In December 1968, YAM published a profile of Oldenburg (the opening spread is shown here) when his artistic reputation was growing, but before he had been able to realize any of his large-scale works of public art. As the magazine later reported, our editors "hit upon the idea of asking the artist to design a monument for Yale. Initially conceived as a drawing to put on the cover of YAM . . . the idea became feasible when the editors of Perspecta (the Yale architectural journal), who had been thinking along parallel lines, announced themselves prepared to raise funds for the project and even to construct it themselves if necessary.” And the rest is history. The sculpture arrived unannounced in Hewitt Quadrangle on May 15, 1969 (second image, from our June 1969 issue). It was later be rebuilt to be more permanent, and it was relocated to Morse College in 1974.
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Claes Oldenburg, lipstick, sculpture, Hewitt Quadrangle, Morse College, Throwback Thursday
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