Tea Bag (from Four on Plexiglas), 1965

Claes Oldenburg’s multiple edition Tea Bag (1966), from the seminal portfolio Four on Plexiglas, transforms an ordinary tea bag into an oversized relief. By rendering the small, soft object in hard Plexiglas and other industrial materials, Oldenburg turns a familiar everyday item into something unexpected and slightly absurd. The stains of tea and the attached cord retain the associations of the original object while shifting it into the realm of sculpture.

Four on Plexiglas was the first portfolio published by the iconic publisher Multiples, Inc. and brought together Oldenburg with Philip Guston, Barnett Newman and Larry Rivers, each exploring the possibilities of Plexiglas as a new medium for editions. Tea Bag was particularly innovative in its use of vacuum-formed Plexiglas, which simultaneously reproduces the shape of the tea bag and the surrounding splashes of tea. The work is in the collections of The Museum of Modern Art, New York, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C., and LACMA, Los Angeles.