Study of Fag End #1

Oldenburg was best known for his sculptures that displayed everyday objects at a very large scale. This work belongs to a series of drawings of "fag ends" (or cigarette butts) Oldenburg made while in London in 1966. Imagining colossal sculptures of this subject to be placed in Hyde Park, he collected cigarette butts to study their different shapes. A superb draftsman, Oldenburg made small naturalist drawings in preparation for his monumental sculptures. "You can make a tiny drawing of something very, very large.... You enter an imaginary universe which you have created with your pencil and watercolor," he said. The elegance of this watercolor, which reflects traditional values of fine draftsmanship, contrasts humorously with the insignificance of the subject matter.