Typewriter Eraser, Scale X, model 1998, fabricated 1999

In the mid-1960s, Claes Oldenburg began to visualize public monuments based on common objects, such as a clothespin or a pair of scissors, instead of historical figures or events. The artist chose the (now obsolete) typewriter eraser as his model for this work based upon childhood memories of playing with the object in his father's office. In the late 1960s and 1970s he used the eraser as a source for drawings, prints, sculpture, and even a never-realized monument for New York City. Here the giant brush arcs back, conveying a sense of motion, as if the wheel-like eraser were rolling down the hill and making its way toward the gate of the garden.