Peter Moore, Portrait of Claes Oldenburg in front of East Side Bagel Inc, New York, 1966, gelatin silver print contact sheet frame. © Northwestern University. Courtesy Paula Cooper Gallery, New York
When Claes Oldenburg moved to New York City in 1956, he saw the posters and bills pasted around the city as the “residue of hopeless dreams.” Inspired by the communicative powers of New York’s advertisements and shops, he drew, sculpted, and printed images of storefronts and posters. Peter Moore moved to New York from Europe in the mid–1950s and was similarly struck by the city’s urban landscape—streets filled with mom-and-pop shops and retro signage—which he documented in photographs. Paula Cooper Gallery now displays the two artists, who were close friends, alongside one another. —Lucy Horowitz