Coosje van Bruggen (June 6, 1942 – January 10, 2009) was a Dutch-born American sculptor, art historian, and critic.^[1] She collaborated extensively with her husband,Claes Oldenburg.

Coosje van Bruggen
van Bruggen and her husband,Claes Oldenburg
Born	Jacoba Wilhelmina Hendrika van Bruggen (1942-06-06)June 6, 1942 Groningen, Netherlands
Died	January 10, 2009(2009-01-10) (aged 66) Los Angeles, California, U.S.
Nationality	Dutch American (from 1993)
Known for	Sculpture
Notable work	List of public art by Oldenburg and van Bruggen
Spouses	Paul Kapteyn ​ (before 1977)​ Claes Oldenburg ​ (m. 1977)​
Children	2

Born to a physician in Groningen, van Bruggen studied history of art at theUniversity of Groningen. From 1967 to 1971, she worked at theStedelijk Museum in Amsterdam. Van Bruggen married her first husband Paul Kapteyn, they had two children, Maartje Kapteyn and Paulus Kapteyn. In Amsterdam she worked with environmental artists like Doug Wheeler, Larry Bell, and the members of the Dutch avant-garde.^[1] Until 1976, van Bruggen taught at theAcademy for Art and Industries inEnschede. She married her second husband, Claes Oldenburg, in 1977 and moved toNew York the following year. In 1993 she became a United States citizen.

She began working with her new husband, sculptorClaes Oldenburg, in 1976. Her first work with Oldenburg came when she helped him install his 41-footTrowel I on the grounds of theKröller-Müller Museum in Otterlo.^[2] Together Oldenburg and van Bruggen produced three decades of monumental sculpture that van Bruggen would call Large-Scale Projects,^[3] with their first piece created as a team beingFlashlight (1981), a huge outdoor sculpture at theUniversity of Nevada, Las Vegas.^[2] In Los Angeles,Collar and Bow - a 65-foot metal and fiberglass sculpture in the shape of a man's dress shirt collar and bow tie, designed for a spot outsideWalt Disney Concert Hall was stalled and eventually canceled due to technical problems and escalating costs.^[4] In 1988, her work with Oldenburg entitledSpoonbridge and Cherry was commissioned by theWalker Art Center. It became a permanent fixture of theMinneapolis Sculpture Garden as well as an iconic image of the city ofMinneapolis. Their final joint work, fabricated in Turin, Italy and titledTumbling Tacks (2009), was designed for theKistefos Sculpture Park in the countryside north of Oslo.^[2]

At her instigation, the couple branched out into indoor installation and performance art. In 1985 they collaborated onIl Corso del Coltello (“The Course of the Knife”), a performance piece in Venice, Italy, with the architectFrank Gehry, whom van Bruggen had met in 1982 when she was on the selection committee fordocumenta 7 inKassel.^[1]

Since the early 1980s van Bruggen worked as an independent critic and curator. She contributed articles toArtforum magazine from 1983 to 1988, and served as senior critic in the sculpture department atYale University School of Art in 1996–97.^[2]

Van Bruggen was the author of scholarly books and essays on the work of major contemporary artists includingGerhard Richter (1985),John Baldessari (1990),Bruce Nauman (1991), andHanne Darboven (1991). She also wrote a monograph on architectFrank O. Gehry'sGuggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain.^[2]

Van Bruggen and Oldenburg were based in New York for many years, but they also lived and worked for extensive periods in Los Angeles and, since 1992, at Château de la Borde inBeaumont-sur-Dême, in the Loire Valley of France.

One U.S. installation the pair collaborated on is the fiberglass and steelCupid's Span, which was commissioned byGAP foundersDonald andDoris F. Fisher, and installed in the newly built Rincon Park along theEmbarcadero in San Francisco in 2002.^[5]

In 2021, Pace Gallery presented an exhibition of van Bruggen's collaborative work with Claes Oldenburg spanning the 1980s to the late 2000s.^[6]

•  
  Bottle O'Notes (Middlesbrough)
•  
  Flying Pins (2000), Eindhoven
•  
  Houseball, Berlin

Together with Oldenburg, van Bruggen received numerous awards including the Distinction in Sculpture, Sculpture Center, New York (1994); Nathaniel S. Saltonstall Award,Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston (1996); Partners in Education Award,Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York (2002); the Medal Award,School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (2004) and honorary degrees from theCalifornia College of the Arts, San Francisco, California (1996);University of Teesside, Middlesbrough, England (1999);Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, Halifax, Nova Scotia (2005); and theCollege for Creative Studies in Detroit, Michigan (2005).

The estate of van Bruggen is represented by ThePace Gallery, New York.

After a long battle withbreast cancer, van Bruggen died at her residence in Los Angeles in 2009, aged 66.^[3]

• Pool Balls (1977),Münster
• Spitzhacke (1982),Kassel
• Gartenschlauch (1983),Freiburg im Breisgau
• Screwarch (1983),Rotterdam
• Cross section of a Toothbrush with Paste, in a Cup, on a Sink: Portrait of Coosje's Thinking (1983),Krefeld
• Balancing Tools (1984),Weil am Rhein
• Knife Ship I (1985),Bilbao
• Spoonbridge and Cherry (1988),Minneapolis
• Bicyclette Ensevelie (1990)Parc de la Villette,Paris
• Free Stamp (1991) Willard Park,Cleveland
• Mistos (1992),Barcelona
• Bottle of Notes (1993),Middlesbrough
• Inverted Collar and Tie (1994),Frankfurt
• Houseball (1996),Berlin
• Torn Notebook (1996),Lincoln, Nebraska
• Lion's Tail (1999),Venice
• Ago, Filo e Nodo (2000),Milan
• Flying Pins (2000),Eindhoven
• Dropped Cone (2001),Cologne
• Cupid's Span (2002),San Francisco
• Spiral (2006),Seoul
• Clothespin (1976),Philadelphia
• Split Button (1981),Philadelphia

• Women in the art history field

•   Media related toCoosje van Bruggen at Wikimedia Commons
• Website Oldenburg and van Bruggen