"Empire" ("Papa") Ray Gun

1959

Patty Mucha, model and future wife

Patty Mucha, who had come to New York in 1957 to become an artist, met Oldenburg while posing nude for his portraits; his drawing “Pat Reading in Bed, Lenox, 1959” is in the Whitney Museum of American Art.

May 1959

First show at the Judson Gallery

In May 1959 the Judson Gallery at Judson Memorial Church on Washington Square held Oldenburg's first one-man show — figurative drawings and papier-mâché sculptures. The artist Robert Beauchamp called him “brilliant” against a “dull” Abstract Expressionist period.

1960

Married: Patty Mucha

by 1960

Sculptures of cardboard and burlap

By 1960 Oldenburg was making sculptures of simply rendered figures, letters and signs, inspired by the Lower East Side where he lived, out of cardboard, burlap and newspaper.

1960s

Happenings of the “Ray Gun Theater”

In the 1960s Oldenburg, now associated with Pop art, staged happenings he called the “Ray Gun Theater”, with Lucas Samaras, Tom Wesselmann, Carolee Schneemann and others; his first wife Patty Mucha, who sewed many of his early soft sculptures — “Floor Hamburger”, “Floor Cone”, “Floor Cake” — was a constant performer.

December 1961

“The Store” on the Lower East Side

In 1961 Oldenburg switched to sculptures of chicken wire covered with plaster-soaked canvas and enamel paint — clothing and food. In December he rented a store on Manhattan's Lower East Side for “The Store”, a month-long installation first presented at the Martha Jackson Gallery and stocked with sculptures in the form of consumer goods.