Profiterole

Claes Oldenburg's Statement on Profiterole (Claes Oldenburg: The Multiples Store, 1996, p. 52):

'For several years, when an illness prevented my wife Coosje from eating the food served in restaurants, I would draw her favorite foods whenever we dined out. I also drew food for her when I traveled alone, as a kind of account of my experiences. Coosje gathered these vicarious meals, mostly done on the three-by-five inch pages of my notebooks and mounted on typewriter sheets in a loose-leaf binder, until she was restored to health in 1989.

Different styles were used, depending on the situation and the mood. Sometimes we ignored the menu and combined our imaginations to produce a dish that had never been seen before, like our profiterole, which is nothing like the pastry usually served under that name. Coosje is from the Netherlands; she thinks her special fondness for profiteroles dates from the time she was four years old, when the sudden availability of chocolate represented for her the end of World War II.

In 1988, at Coosje's suggestion, our version of a profiterole became the point of departure for an edition made to benefit the Hereditary Disease Foundation. As it turned out, profiteroles were also the favorite dessert of the foundation's head, Dr. Milton Wexler.

After several failed attempts to shape Profiterole entirely out of clay, I fell back on the imitation of culinary techniques in plaster developed for my exhibition of Paris food in 1964. Plaster "ice-cream" and "sauce" were scooped and poured repeatedly until a satisfying result was obtained; this was then fastened between two sections of polystyrene "pastry" and cast in plaster. Unlike the Paris pieces, which remained in plaster with a tint of watercolor, Profiterole was recast in aluminium and then painted with opaque latex.'

Cast aluminium with latex paint, brass, 1989, signed, titled, dated, and numbered by incision on a brass disk in base, from the edition of 75 (there are also 25 artist's proofs), published by Gemini G.E.L., Los Angeles, overall: 145 x 165 x 165 mm (5¾ x 6½ x 6½ in.)

Multiples Store 22; Multiples in Retrospect 22