Rauschenberg, Robert (Milton Ernest) (b Port Arthur, TX, 22 Oct 1925; d Captiva Island, FL, 12 May 2008). American painter, sculptor, printmaker, photographer, and performance artist. While too much of an individualist ever to be fully a part of any movement, he acted as an important bridge between Abstract Expressionism and Pop art and can be credited as one of the major influences in the return to favour of representational art in the USA. As iconoclastic in his invention of new techniques as in his wide-ranging iconography of modern life, he suggested new possibilities that continued to be exploited by younger artists throughout the latter decades of the 20th century. 1. Training and early work, to 1953. Rauschenberg studied at Kansas City Art Institute and School of Design from 1947 to 1948 under the terms of the GI Bill before travelling to Paris, where he attended the Académie Julian for a period of about six months. On reading about the work of Josef Albers he returned to the USA to study from autumn 1948 to spring 1949 at BLACK MOUNTAIN COLLEGE, where he was taught byAlbers and his wife Anni Albers; he moved in spring 1949 to New York, where he attended the Art Students League until 1952. During this period he continued to visit Black Mountain College, where he came into contact with members of the department of music and dance, in particularJOHN CAGE and MERCE CUNNINGHAM, who helped shape his own ideas and in particular his reliance on chance methods, daily experiences and found material as elements of his art. In the early 1950s, just as Abstract Expressionism was being recognized as the most important avant-garde movement to have emerged in the USA, Rauschenberg produced several series of abstract paintings: a group of White Paintings (1951; e.g. artist’s col., see 1980–81 exh. cat., p. 259), followed by Black Paintings (1951–2; e.g. artist’s col., see 1976–8 exh. cat., p. 67) and Red Paintings (1953; e.g. Beverly Hills, CA, Frederick R. Weisman priv. col., see 1976–8 exh. cat., p. 75). His concern, however, was not so much to project his personality through the individuality of the brushwork, as in action painting, but to present the textured surfaces of these essentially monochromatic works as screens whose appearance changed in response to the lighting conditions and the shadows cast on them by the spectators. The first of Rauschenberg’s monochromes, some of which were painted on multiple panels measuring over 3 m in width overall, were made as backdrops for dance performances. While their austerity of form prefigures Minimalism of the 1960s, they were thus conceived largely in relation to the human figure. Rauschenberg’s importance and influence, in fact, were centred from the beginning on the highly original ways in which he reintroduced recognizable imagery. From 1949 to 1951 he and his wife, Susan Weil, whom he had met as a fellow student in Paris and married in 1950, produced a group of large-scale monoprints by shining a s ...

1. Rauschenberg, Robert (Milton Ernest)
(b Port Arthur, TX, 22 Oct 1925; d Captiva Island, FL, 12 May
2008).
American painter, sculptor, printmaker, photographer,
and performance artist. While too much of an individualist ever
to be fully a part of any movement, he acted as an important
bridge between Abstract Expressionism and Pop art and can be
credited as one of the major influences in the return to favour of
representational art in the USA. As iconoclastic in his invention
of new techniques as in his wide-ranging iconography of
modern life, he suggested new possibilities that continued to be
exploited by younger artists throughout the latter decades of the
20th century.
1. Training and early work, to 1953.
Rauschenberg studied at Kansas City Art Institute and School of
Design from 1947 to 1948 under the terms of the GI Bill before
travelling to Paris, where he attended the Académie Julian for a
period of about six months. On reading about the work of Josef
Albers he returned to the USA to study from autumn 1948 to
spring 1949 at BLACK MOUNTAIN COLLEGE, where he was
taught byAlbers and his wife Anni Albers; he moved in spring
1949 to New York, where he attended the Art Students League
until 1952. During this period he continued to visit Black
Mountain College, where he came into contact with members of
the department of music and dance, in particularJOHN
CAGE and MERCE CUNNINGHAM, who helped shape his own
ideas and in particular his reliance on chance methods, daily
experiences and found material as elements of his art.
In the early 1950s, just as Abstract Expressionism was being
recognized as the most important avant-garde movement to have
emerged in the USA, Rauschenberg produced several series of
abstract paintings: a group of White Paintings (1951; e.g.
artist’s col., see 1980–81 exh. cat., p. 259), followed by Black
Paintings (1951–2; e.g. artist’s col., see 1976–8 exh. cat., p. 67)

2. and Red Paintings (1953; e.g. Beverly Hills, CA, Frederick R.
Weisman priv. col., see 1976–8 exh. cat., p. 75). His concern,
however, was not so much to project his personality through the
individuality of the brushwork, as in action painting, but to
present the textured surfaces of these essentially monochromatic
works as screens whose appearance changed in response to the
lighting conditions and the shadows cast on them by the
spectators.
The first of Rauschenberg’s monochromes, some of which were
painted on multiple panels measuring over 3 m in width overall,
were made as backdrops for dance performances. While their
austerity of form prefigures Minimalism of the 1960s, they were
thus conceived largely in relation to the human figure.
Rauschenberg’s importance and influence, in fact, were centred
from the beginning on the highly original ways in which he
reintroduced recognizable imagery. From 1949 to 1951 he and
his wife, Susan Weil, whom he had met as a fellow student in
Paris and married in 1950, produced a group of large-scale
monoprints by shining a sun-lamp over a nude model resting
directly on blueprint paper; Female Figure
(Blueprint) (2670×910 mm, c. 1949; artist’s col., see 1980–81
exh. cat., p. 57) is one of the most imposing of these works. In
combining elements of photography, printmaking, and painting
in a single image, these experimental works presaged the
deliberate blurring of the boundaries between different media
that quickly became one of the characteristic features of
Rauschenberg’s art.
A desire to assimilate but also transcend the lessons of Abstract
Expressionism was a strong motivating force in Rauschenberg’s
early work. In a collaboration with John Cage, Automobile Tire
Print (ink on paper mounted on canvas, 420×6720 mm, 1951;
artist’s col., see 1976–8 exh. cat., p. 65), he elaborated two of
the movement’s essential concerns—that of revealing the
process by which the marks are made and of working on an
environmental scale—while simultaneously parodying them and
stripping them of their pretensions to grandeur and sublimity.

3. Instead of suggesting that the marks are the result of an
existential struggle between the artist and his or her materials,
he presents the imprint made by a car driven into wet ink and
then on to the paper; the extensive scale similarly functions on
an equally literal, even banal, level, as the image as a whole can
be apprehended only through the spectator’s actual movement
over a period of time.
2. Combine paintings and transfer drawings, 1954–61.
In 1953 Rauschenberg asked Willem de Kooning for a
substantial drawing with the express intention of rubbing it out
so that only faint traces of the original could be seen. While this
act (Erased de Kooning Drawing; artist’s col., see 1976–8 exh.
cat., p. 75) of simultaneous homage and sabotage towards one
of the most esteemed artists of the time has generally been seen
as a sign of Rauschenberg’s debt to Dada, his purpose was not
to make an anti-art gesture but to open up the possibilities about
what art could be.
Among the Dadaists Rauschenberg’s greatest affinity was with
Kurt Schwitters, whose Merzcollages had suggested the
possibility of finding beauty through the retrieval of refuse and
humble materials gathered together while wandering the streets.
In 1954 Rauschenberg began to produce paintings such
as Charlene (1954; Amsterdam, Stedel. Mus.), which
combined objets trouvés, postcards, and other printed materials
into a frantic and physically substantial surface as a way of
alluding to what he referred to as the ‘gap’ between art and life.
Robert Rauschenberg: First Landing Jump, cloth, metal, leather,
electric fixture,…Rauschenberg called these works ‘combines’
because of their mixture of techniques, but at their most
sculptural it was clear that their debt was to traditions not only
of collage but of ASSEMBLAGE(see fig.). Their reliance on
discarded materials and frequently squalid appearance made
them influential examples of JUNK ART, especially in the case
of free-standing works such as Odalisque(1955–8; Cologne,
Mus. Ludwig). Certain works, such as Bed (1955; New York,
MOMA), executed at the same time as the paintings of flags by

4. Jasper Johns, who had a studio in the building also occupied by
Rauschenberg from 1955 to 1958, influenced the emergence
of POP ART in their identification of the work of art with a real
object.
Rauschenberg used great ingenuity in alluding to personal and
shared experiences. There is often a sense that his works are to
be regarded as collaborative ventures with the spectator, as
inBlack Market (1961; Cologne, Mus. Ludwig), which consists
not only of a painting but also of a suitcase containing objects
meant to be used by the viewer in completing the work. Another
‘combine’, Pilgrim (1960; Berlin, R. Onnasch priv. col., see
1976–8 exh. cat., p. 110), consisting of a paint-smeared chair
resting against a broadly painted canvas, relates to a black-and-
white photograph he took in 1949, Quiet House—Black
Mountain (see Robert Rauschenberg Photographs, pl. 1), in
which a shaft of light falls across one of two chairs seen
frontally against a bare wall.
During this period Rauschenberg also developed a transfer
drawing technique, by which he dissolved printed images from
newspapers and magazines with a solvent and then rubbed them
on to paper using a sharp pencil. The process allowed him
freely to combine images from a variety of sources on a single
surface. He used it to particular effect in a series of 34
Drawings for ‘Dante’s Inferno’ (1959–60; New York, MOMA).
The methods of free association by which he built up these
compositions, indebted in part to Surrealism, remained an
essential ingredient of his later art.
3. Screenprinted paintings and installations, 1962–70.
Robert Rauschenberg: Estate, oil and silkscreen ink on canvas,
2.44×1.78…Rauschenberg stopped making combine paintings in
1962, when he found a way of adapting his method of transfer
drawing to canvas by applying found images through the
photomechanical process of screenprinting. Often he painted
over this printed surface in oils, for example in Estate (1963;
Philadelphia, PA, Mus. A.), and he remained interested in
textural effects and in apparently spontaneous methods of

5. organizing his imagery, which gave these works a more personal
touch than that sought by Andy Warhol in his screenprinted
paintings of the same date. It was nevertheless in these works
and in editioned prints, such as Breakthrough II (colour
lithograph, 1965; New York, MOMA), that he came closest in
spirit toPop art.
Rauschenberg won, with some controversy, the grand prize for
painting at the Venice Biennale in 1964, but after that date his
interest shifted from painting to performances and more
elaborate sculptures and installations. Until 1965 he travelled
with Merce Cunningham’s company, for which he had designed
sets and costumes from 1954 and acted as lighting director and
stage manager from 1961. He staged his own performances from
1963, with the première of Pelican, which he choreographed and
designed, through to 1967. The dramatic aspects of these live
events were translated into sculptural installations such
as Oracle (1965; Paris, Pompidou), a ‘sound environment’
consisting of five motor-operated objects.
The battered appearance of such works, still aligned with junk
art, soon gave way to more elegant and pristine
installations. Soundings (2.44×10.97×1.37 m, 1968; Cologne,
Mus. Ludwig), for instance, consists of three rows of nine
Perspex panels, each with screenprinted photographs of chairs
taken from different angles; electric lights within the work are
activated by sounds made by visitors in a darkened gallery,
encouraging prolonged applause in a deft metaphor rewarding
the artist for his performance.
4. Works after 1970.
In the early 1970s Rauschenberg embarked on Cardboard
Series (e.g. see 1986–7 exh. cat., pp. 27–31), each of which
consists simply of the configurations created by opening out the
sides of cardboard boxes and laying them flat against the wall.
Like the Arte Povera artists working at that time in Europe, he
stressed the ordinary and humble quality of his materials in an
even more exaggerated manner than had been the case in his
earlier work; these constructions, however eccentric and

6. complex in form, contain no additional handmade or painted
marks. In calling attention to the creative act as the
restructuring of an objet trouvé, they take as their theme the
process by which they have been called into being. In this they
were also aligned with developments of the time, particularly
with PROCESS ART.
In 1974 Rauschenberg began his Hoarfrost Series (e.g. see
1986–7 exh. cat., pp. 33–7), which consists of layers of
transparent gauze-like fabric laid over each other like veils and
combined in some cases with more substantial collage elements.
His use here of soft materials that find their form only when
hung on the wall again relates to aspects of process art, such as
the felt pieces made by Robert Morris (ii) in the late 1960s,
while synthesizing aspects of his own earlier art into works of
extraordinary delicacy and subtlety. There is a suggestion in
particular of the evanescent quality of images momentarily
imprinted on our consciousness: the photographic images are
drawn from a variety of sources and impregnated into the cloth
by solvent transfer, a technique adapted from the drawings he
had made from the late 1950s and casually related to each other
by collage-like methods of composition.
In later works Rauschenberg continued to develop the principles
on which he had operated from the 1950s, frequently combining
elements of painting, sculpture, photography and printmaking
with such thoroughness as to make redundant the conventional
demarcations from one medium to another. In Spray Shield
Marathon (1977; Aachen, Neue Gal.), for instance, images are
impressed on to the back of a sun tent hung parallel to a sheet
of polished aluminium, so that they can be seen only in
reflection, while in Suzerain (1979; Mainz, Landesmus.) a
plethora of images is printed or collaged on to canvas and on to
a wooden panel mounted on to a movable sculptural object
placed on the floor.
While Rauschenberg did not create any radically new directions
in the 1980s, he continued to develop provocative variations on
his standard methods, notably in a series of wall-mounted works

7. entitled Gluts (see 1987 exh. cat.) that were assembled from
found pieces of crushed or battered metal. The extended series
of works that he devised around the world from 1985 to 1990 as
part of an ambitious project, the Rauschenberg Overseas Culture
Interchange, revealed the extent to which he continued to regard
his art as an agent of social interchange and communication. In
these and other works of the period he demonstrated
conclusively that he had lost none of his ability to bring
together images, shapes, and textures with an unerring intuitive
grasp of their interrelationships. Having long since escaped the
confines of style, as understood by most artists of his
generation, and even the distinction between abstract and
representational art, he recognized no rules other than those he
had himself invented as the basis for his art.
Bibliography
D. Ashton: ‘Rauschenberg’s Thirty-four Illustrations
for Dante’s Inferno’, Metro, 2 (May 1961), pp. 52–61
J. Cage: ‘On Robert Rauschenberg, Artist and his Work’, Metro,
2 (May 1961), pp. 36–51; also
in J. Cage:Silence (Middletown, 1961), pp. 98–108
Robert Rauschenberg (exh. cat. by A. Solomon, New York, Jew.
Mus., 1963)
Robert Rauschenberg: Paintings, Drawings and Combines,
1949–1964 (exh. cat., essays H. Geldzahler, J.Cage,
and M. Kozloff; London, Whitechapel A.G., 1964)
C. Tomkins: The Bride and the Bachelors: The Heretical
Courtship in Modern Art (New York and London,1965), pp.
189–237
D. G. Seckler: ‘The Artist Speaks: Robert Rauschenberg’, A.
America, liv/3 (1966), pp. 72–84
A. Forge: Robert Rauschenberg (New York [1969])
Robert Rauschenberg: Prints, 1948–1970 (exh. cat., intro. E.
A. Foster; Minneapolis, Inst. A., 1970)
Robert Rauschenberg (exh. cat., text L. Alloway; Washington,
DC, N. Col. F.A.; New York, MOMA; San Francisco, MOMA;
Buffalo, Albright–Knox A.G.; Chicago, A. Inst.; 1976–8)

8. C. Tomkins: Off the Wall: Robert Rauschenberg and the Art
World of our Time (Garden City, NY, 1980)
Robert Rauschenberg: Werke, 1950–1980 (exh. cat.,
essays L. Alloway, G. Adriani, and D. M. Davis; Berlin, Staatl.
Ksthalle; Düsseldorf, Städt. Ksthalle; Humlebæk, Louisiana
Mus.; Frankfurt am Main, Städel. Kstinst.; Munich,
Lenbachhaus; London, Tate; 1980–81)
Rauschenberg photographe (Paris, 1981); Eng. trans. as Robert
Rauschenberg Photographs (London,1981) [incl. interview
by A. Sayag]
Robert Rauschenberg: Work from Four Series (exh. cat.,
essay L. L. Cathcart; Houston, Contemp. A. Mus.; San Antonio,
TX, McNay A. Inst.; Dallas, Mus. A.; Corpus Christi, A. Mus.
S. TX; 1986–7)
B. Rose: An Interview with Robert Rauschenberg (New
York, 1987)
Robert Rauschenberg: Gluts (exh. cat., London, Waddington
Gals, 1987)
M. L. Kotz: Rauschenberg: Art and Life (New York, 1990)
Robert Rauschenberg: The Silkscreen Paintings, 1962–64 (exh.
cat. by R. Feinstein, New York, Whitney,1990)
Rauschenberg Overseas Culture Interchange (exh. cat.,
ed. M. Yakush; Washington, DC, N.G.A., 1991)
Robert Rauschenberg: The Early 1950s (exh. cat. by W. Hopps,
Washington, DC, Corcoran Gal. A.; Houston, TX, Meril Col.;
Chicago, IL, Mus. Contemp. A.; San Francisco, CA, Mus. Mod.
A.; 1991–2)
Robert Rauschenberg (exh. cat., ed. A. Zweite; Düsseldorf,
Kstsamml. Nordrhein-Westfalen, 1994)
L. Steinberg: Encounters with Rauschenberg: A Lavishly
Illustrated Lecture (Chicago, 2000)
B. W. Joseph, ed.: Robert Rauschenberg (Cambridge,
MA, 2002)
B. W. Joseph: Random Order: Robert Rauschenberg and the
Neo-Avant-Garde (Cambridge, MA, 2003)
Robert Rauschenberg: Combines (exh. cat., Los Angeles, CA,

9. Mus. Contemp. A., 2005)
S. Hunter, ed.: Robert Rauschenberg: Works, Writings and
Interviews (Barcelona, 2006)
For further bibliography seePOP ART.
Marco Livingstone
Doss, Erika. Oxford History of Art : Twentieth-Century
American Art. Cary, NC, USA: Oxford Paperbacks, 2002.
ProQuest ebrary. Web. 14 August 2015.
Copyright © 2002. Oxford Paperbacks. All rights reserved.
Doss, Erika. Oxford History of Art : Twentieth-Century
American Art. Cary, NC, USA: Oxford Paperbacks, 2002.
ProQuest ebrary. Web. 14 August 2015.
Copyright © 2002. Oxford Paperbacks. All rights reserved.
Doss, Erika. Oxford History of Art : Twentieth-Century
American Art. Cary, NC, USA: Oxford Paperbacks, 2002.
ProQuest ebrary. Web. 14 August 2015.
Copyright © 2002. Oxford Paperbacks. All rights reserved.
Doss, Erika. Oxford History of Art : Twentieth-Century
American Art. Cary, NC, USA: Oxford Paperbacks, 2002.
ProQuest ebrary. Web. 14 August 2015.
Copyright © 2002. Oxford Paperbacks. All rights reserved.

10. Doss, Erika. Oxford History of Art : Twentieth-Century
American Art. Cary, NC, USA: Oxford Paperbacks, 2002.
ProQuest ebrary. Web. 14 August 2015.
Copyright © 2002. Oxford Paperbacks. All rights reserved.
Doss, Erika. Oxford History of Art : Twentieth-Century
American Art. Cary, NC, USA: Oxford Paperbacks, 2002.
ProQuest ebrary. Web. 14 August 2015.
Copyright © 2002. Oxford Paperbacks. All rights reserved.
Doss, Erika. Oxford History of Art : Twentieth-Century
American Art. Cary, NC, USA: Oxford Paperbacks, 2002.
ProQuest ebrary. Web. 14 August 2015.
Copyright © 2002. Oxford Paperbacks. All rights reserved.
Doss, Erika. Oxford History of Art : Twentieth-Century
American Art. Cary, NC, USA: Oxford Paperbacks, 2002.
ProQuest ebrary. Web. 14 August 2015.
Copyright © 2002. Oxford Paperbacks. All rights reserved.
Doss, Erika. Oxford History of Art : Twentieth-Century
American Art. Cary, NC, USA: Oxford Paperbacks, 2002.
ProQuest ebrary. Web. 14 August 2015.
Copyright © 2002. Oxford Paperbacks. All rights reserved.

11. Doss, Erika. Oxford History of Art : Twentieth-Century
American Art. Cary, NC, USA: Oxford Paperbacks, 2002.
ProQuest ebrary. Web. 14 August 2015.
Copyright © 2002. Oxford Paperbacks. All rights reserved.
Doss, Erika. Oxford History of Art : Twentieth-Century
American Art. Cary, NC, USA: Oxford Paperbacks, 2002.
ProQuest ebrary. Web. 14 August 2015.
Copyright © 2002. Oxford Paperbacks. All rights reserved.
Doss, Erika. Oxford History of Art : Twentieth-Century
American Art. Cary, NC, USA: Oxford Paperbacks, 2002.
ProQuest ebrary. Web. 14 August 2015.
Copyright © 2002. Oxford Paperbacks. All rights reserved.
Doss, Erika. Oxford History of Art : Twentieth-Century
American Art. Cary, NC, USA: Oxford Paperbacks, 2002.
ProQuest ebrary. Web. 14 August 2015.
Copyright © 2002. Oxford Paperbacks. All rights reserved.
Doss, Erika. Oxford History of Art : Twentieth-Century
American Art. Cary, NC, USA: Oxford Paperbacks, 2002.
ProQuest ebrary. Web. 14 August 2015.
Copyright © 2002. Oxford Paperbacks. All rights reserved.
Doss, Erika. Oxford History of Art : Twentieth-Century

12. American Art. Cary, NC, USA: Oxford Paperbacks, 2002.
ProQuest ebrary. Web. 14 August 2015.
Copyright © 2002. Oxford Paperbacks. All rights reserved.
Doss, Erika. Oxford History of Art : Twentieth-Century
American Art. Cary, NC, USA: Oxford Paperbacks, 2002.
ProQuest ebrary. Web. 14 August 2015.
Copyright © 2002. Oxford Paperbacks. All rights reserved.
Doss, Erika. Oxford History of Art : Twentieth-Century
American Art. Cary, NC, USA: Oxford Paperbacks, 2002.
ProQuest ebrary. Web. 14 August 2015.
Copyright © 2002. Oxford Paperbacks. All rights reserved.
Doss, Erika. Oxford History of Art : Twentieth-Century
American Art. Cary, NC, USA: Oxford Paperbacks, 2002.
ProQuest ebrary. Web. 14 August 2015.
Copyright © 2002. Oxford Paperbacks. All rights reserved.
Doss, Erika. Oxford History of Art : Twentieth-Century
American Art. Cary, NC, USA: Oxford Paperbacks, 2002.
ProQuest ebrary. Web. 14 August 2015.
Copyright © 2002. Oxford Paperbacks. All rights reserved.
Doss, Erika. Oxford History of Art : Twentieth-Century
American Art. Cary, NC, USA: Oxford Paperbacks, 2002.

13. ProQuest ebrary. Web. 14 August 2015.
Copyright © 2002. Oxford Paperbacks. All rights reserved.
Doss, Erika. Oxford History of Art : Twentieth-Century
American Art. Cary, NC, USA: Oxford Paperbacks, 2002.
ProQuest ebrary. Web. 14 August 2015.
Copyright © 2002. Oxford Paperbacks. All rights reserved.
Doss, Erika. Oxford History of Art : Twentieth-Century
American Art. Cary, NC, USA: Oxford Paperbacks, 2002.
ProQuest ebrary. Web. 14 August 2015.
Copyright © 2002. Oxford Paperbacks. All rights reserved.