The Swedish-American Pop artist is famous for his soft sculptures depicting familiar everyday objects. In 1956, he moved to New York, where he became fascinated by what he saw as he walked the city’s streets: shop windows, graffiti, advertisements and garbage. Claes Oldenburg’s perception of the sculptural qualities of these objects kindled his interest in sculpture. Between 1960 and 1961, he created The Store. It featured a shop premises, which the artist had rented and filled with painted plaster copies of food, clothes, jewellery and a large range of other items, as if they were items for sale in the shop. In 1962, he exhibited another version of his ‘store’. This one featured huge, canvas-coated, foam-rubber sculptures of an ice cream cone, a hamburger and a slice of cake, which led to the expression for which Claes Oldenburg is famous today. Like Andy Warhol and other Pop artists, Oldenburg found his material in ordinary consumer products, which often have close human associations. This work is a good example. A cigarette butt, a piece of rubbish, forms the ironic basis for a work of art.