Giant Three-Way Plug (Oldenburg)

Claes Oldenburg's Giant Three-Way Plug, Scale A looks as if it dropped from the sky and dug its own hole, which is nearly how the artist described it. The Philadelphia Inquirer reported in August 2010 that the nearly 10-foot-long plug, in Cor-Ten steel and bronze, was lowered into a grassy knob outside the museum's west entrance on 25 August. A collector gave it in honour of Anne d'Harnoncourt, the museum's late director, and the sculpture garden, which began with works by Isamu Noguchi, was named for her. Oldenburg said the plug “looks very much like a building” and appears to have “fallen and created its own hole in the ground”. The museum says the three-way plug first appeared in his work in a 1965 drawing and that this version, from an edition of three, is based on a standard American Bakelite design. The other two are at the Saint Louis Art Museum and Oberlin College's Allen Art Museum. The museum dates the work to 1970; the Saint Louis Art Museum says this third edition was made in 1973 for a Philadelphia collector, who displayed it at home until 2010. WHYY noted in 2022 that the museum also has an indoor cherry-wood version. A Northeast Times guide from April 2025 lists the plug among the sculptures in the garden, which it says is open daily from sunrise to sunset. Garden hours are worth checking with the museum before a visit.