Columbia Center for Oral History Portal > Oral history interview with Patty Mucha, 2015Biographical NotePatty Mucha was born in Milwaukee, WI and attended Wisconsin State Teachers College in Milwaukee (now the University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee), where she majored in art. In 1957, she moved to New York to become an artist and met Claes Oldenburg by accident after being there for two months. At the time he was painting portraits, and Mucha became one of his nude models. She was married to Oldenburg from 1960-1970. She sewed many of his early soft sculptures and performed in the Happenings and other Oldenburg works
Scope and ContentsPatty Mucha begins by describing her path from Wisconsin to New York City, where she arrived in 1957. She participated in several projects, including Happenings, of the late 1950s and early 1960s, and met Robert Rauschenberg in the social scene of that time. She describes her collaboration with Claes Oldenberg and others in various Happenings. She reflects on the community of artists at that time, including her friendship with Olga Adorno, and her marriage to Oldenburg. She describes spending time in Europe with Claes and with Ileana and Michael Sonnabend, and her time in New York after separating from Claes. She describes some of her subsequent work, including going to France to participate in a movie with Niki de St. Phalle, Jean Tingueley and Clarice Rivers, and advocating for John Lennon and Yoko Ono, and working with the Yippies. She reflects on how Rauschenberg impacted her
SubjectsAccess ConditionsCopyright by the Trustees of Columbia University in the City of New York and Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, 2015
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