Robert Rauschenberg

born Port Arthur, TX (USA) 1925, died May 12th 2008

Robert Rauschenberg was a painter, sculptor, and graphic artist known for helping to redefine American art in the 1950s and '60s, providing an alternative to the then-dominant aesthetic of Abstract Expressionism. Rauschenberg realized his talent with drawing when he turned 22 in the Marines.

Born Milton Ernest Rauschenberg on October 22, 1925 in Port Arthur, Texas, Rauschenberg studied at the Kansas City Art Institute and the Academie Julian in Paris, before enrolling in 1948 at the legendary Black Mountain College in North Carolina. There his painting instructor was the renowned Bauhaus figure Josef Albers, whose rigid discipline and sense of method inspired Rauschenberg, as he once said, to do "exactly the reverse" of what Albers taught him.

More often, Rauschenberg's early works reflected the aesthetic of his friend, composer John Cage, another member of the Black Mountain faculty, whose music of chance occurrences and found sounds perfectly suited Rauschenberg's personality. The "white paintings" produced by Rauschenberg at Black Mountain in 1951, while they contain no image at all, are said to be so exceptionally blank and reflective that their surfaces respond and change in sympathy with the ambient conditions in which they are shown, "so you could almost tell how many people are in the room," as Rauschenberg once commented. The White Paintings are said to have directly influenced Cage in the composition of his completely "silent" piece titled 4'33" the following year.

In 1952 Rauschenberg began his series of "Black Paintings" and "Red Paintings," in which large, expressionistically brushed areas of color were combined with collage and found objects attached to the canvas. These so-called "Combine Paintings" ultimately came to include such theretofore un-painterly objects as a stuffed goat and the artist's own bedquilt, breaking down traditional boundaries between painting and sculpture, and reportedly prompting one Abstract Expressionist painter to remark, "If this is Modern Art, then I quit!" Rauschenberg's Combines provided inspiration for a generation of artists seeking alternatives to traditional artistic media. (See Assemblage, Arte Povera.)

Rauschenberg's approach was sometimes called "Neo-Dada," a label he shared with the painter Jasper Johns, with whom he had a long artistic and personal relationship. Rauschenberg's oft-repeated quote that he wanted to work "in the gap between art and life," suggested a questioning of the distinction between art objects and everyday objects reminiscent of the issues raised by the notorious "Fountain" of Dada pioneer Marcel Duchamp. At the same time, Johns' paintings of numerals, flags, and the like, were reprising Duchamp's message of the role of the observer in creating art's meaning.

By 1962, Rauschenberg's paintings were beginning to incorporate not only found objects but found images as well--photographs transferred to the canvas by means of the silkscreen process. Previously used only in commercial applications, silkscreen allowed Rauschenberg to address the multiple reproducibility of images, and the consequent flattening of experience that that implies. In this respect, his work was exactly contemporaneous with that of Andy Warhol, and both Rauschenberg and Johns are frequently cited as important forerunners of American Pop Art.

In addition to painting and sculpture, Rauschenberg's long career has also included significant contributions to printmaking and Performance Art. As of 2003 he continues to work from his home and studio in Captiva, Florida.

Select Timeline

Select Exhibitions

• 1999 - Robert Rauschenberg - Malerei, Galleri Faurschou, Copenhagen
• 1999 - Robert Rauschenberg - Obra grafica (1967-1979), Museo de Arte Abstracto Espanol, Cuenca
• 1999 - Robert Rauschenberg - The 1/4 Mile or 2 Furlong Piece, Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, North Adams, MA
• 1999 - Robert Rauschenberg - Photographs, Galleria Rubin, Milano
• 2000 - Robert Rauschenberg - Darryl Pottorf, Galerie Tanit, Munich
• 2000 - Robert Rauschenberg - Synapsis Shuffle, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY
• 2000 - Highlights of Late 20th-Century Art from the Sydney and Frances Lewis Collection, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, VA
• 2001 - Modernism & Abstraction: Treasures from the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Worcester Art Museum, Worcester, MA
• 2001 - ROBERT RAUSCHENBERG - RUMINATIONS, volcker & freunde gallery, Berlin
• 2001 - Robert Rauschenberg: Marrakech, La Caja Negra, Madrid
• 2001 - Robert Rauschenberg: Short Stories, Galerie Jamileh Weber, Zurich
• 2002 - X-LARGE - Borofsky, Burden, Johns, Kelly, Lichtenstein, Rauschenberg, Serra, Ste, Brooke Alexander Editions, New York, NY
• 2002 - An American Legacy, A Gift to New York, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY
• 2002 - Robert Rauschenberg - Les dix dernieres annees, Musee Maillol - Fondation Dina Vierny, Paris
• 2002 - Robert Rauschenberg - Short Stories, Waddington Galleries, London
• 2002 - Robert Rauschenberg: Recent Work, The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
• 2003 - Popular, Pop & Post-Pop: Color Screenprints 1930s to Now, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, PA
• 2003 - Robert Rauschenberg - Prints & Unique Work, Jim Kempner Fine Art, New York, NY
• 2004 - Robert Rauschenberg: Current Scenarios, Wadsworth Museum of Art, Hartford
• 2004 - Mostly Photography - Art since 1980 from the Collection, Williams College Museum of Art, Williamstown, MA
• 2004 - What's modern? Gagosian Gallery, New York, NY
• 2004 - Made in USA popart, Galerie Laurent Strouk, Paris
• 2004 - Robert Rauschenberg, Bernard Jacobson Gallery, London, England
• 2004 - 15 Minutes of Fame: 20 Years of Pop Prints, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, VIC
• 2004 - Robert Rauschenberg, John Berggruen Gallery, San Francisco, CA
• 2005 - Rauschenberg - Rosenquist - Lichtenstein, Bernard Jacobson Gallery, London, England
• 2005 - Robert Rauschenberg, Galerie Terminus, Munich
• 2005 - Dialogues: Duchamp, Cornell, Johns, Rauschenberg, Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas, TX
• 2005 - Robert Rauschenberg: on and off the wall, MUSEE D'ART MODERNE ET D'ART CONTEMPORAIN-NICE, Nice
• 2005 - Combines organized by The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles in association with The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
• 2006 - Robert Rauschenberg, Centre Pompidou - Musee National d'Art Moderne, Paris
• 2006 - Robert Rauschenberg, Gallery Hyundai, Seoul
• 2006 - Robert Rauschenberg, MOCA THE GEFFEN CONTEMPORARY, Los Angeles, CA; MOCA Grand Avenue, Los Angeles, CA
• 2006 - Robert Rauschenberg: Spread and Scale, Galerie Jamileh Weber, Zurich
• 2006 - Art from Life: Prints by Robert Rauschenberg, Cantor Arts Center at Stanford University, Stanford, CA
• 2006 - Focus Room. Robert Rauschenberg, Tate Liverpool, Liverpool, England
• 2006 - Robert Rauschenberg: Scenarios and Short Stories, Jepson Center for the Arts, Savannah, GA
• 2006 - Rauschenberg: Prints, Jim Kempner Fine Art, New York, NY
• 2007 - Robert Rauschenberg, Moderna Museet, Stockholm

Select Artwork

• L.A. Flakes- 11,000',and Rising, 1982
• L.A. Flakes- 10,000', and Rising, 1982
• Publicon-Station I © Gemini G.E.L. and the Artist, 1978
• Horse Silk, 1993
• Airport Series, 1974
• The Red Virgin, 1969
• Eagle Eye (Ruminations), 1999
• Rose Bed (Anagram), 1996
• Bellini # 5, 1989
• More Distant Visible Parts of the Sea, 1979

Quotes

• "It is impossible to have progress without conscience."
• "I think a painting is more like the real world if it's made out of the real world."
• "The artist's job is to be a witness to his time in history."
• "You begin with the possibilities of the material."
• "An empty canvas is full only if you want it to be full."
• "I work in the gap between art and life."
• "You have to have the time to feel sorry for yourself in order to be a good abstract expressionist."
• "I feel though the world is a friendly boy walking along the sun."

Publications

• Robert Rauschenberg - by Sam Hunter, Rizzoli International Publications (January 1, 2000)
• Robert Rauschenberg - Man at Work (1997) - Director: Chris Granlund, DVD, Image Entertainment
• Rauschenberg/Art and Life - by Mary Lynn Kotz, Harry N. Abrams; New edition (November 16, 2004)
• Robert Rauschenberg: Breaking Boundaries - by Robert Saltonstall Mattison, Robert Rauschenberg, Yale University Press (September 1, 2003)
• Off the Wall: A Portrait of Robert Rauschenberg - by Calvin Tomkins, Picador (November 29, 2005)
• Robert Rauschenberg: Combines - by Robert Rauschenberg, Paul Schimmel, Steidl Publishing (January 28, 2006)
• Random Order: Robert Rauschenberg and the Neo-Avant-Garde - by Branden W. Joseph, The MIT Press; New Ed edition (April 30, 2007)

Quick Facts

• Robert Rauschenberg is an American artist who came to prominence in the 1950s.
• Rauschenberg has also worked with photography, printmaking, paper making, performance, and a method of drawing known as solvent transfer.
• He was the first American artist to win the Grand Prize at the Venice Biennale.
• Rauschenberg began his series of "Black Paintings" and "Red Paintings," in which large, expressionistically brushed areas of color were combined with collage and found objects attached to the canvas.
• Rauschenberg's approach was sometimes called "Neo-Dada," a label he shared with the painter Jasper Johns, with whom he had a long artistic and personal relationship.
• Rauschenberg was invited to participate in an exhibition at the Galerie Iris Clert, where artists were to create and display a portrait of the owner, Iris Clert. Rauschenberg's submission consisted of a telegram sent to the gallery declaring "This is a portrait of Iris Clert if I say so."
• In 1966, Billy Kluver and Rauschenberg officially launched Experiments in Art and Technology (E.A.T.) a non-profit organization established to promote collaborations between artists and engineers.

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