Virtual Art Tour

Robert Rauschenberg, American, born 1925

Untitled

Born in Port Arthur, Texas, Robert Rauschenberg studied at the Kansas Art Institute and Black Mountain College, and is now based in Florida and New York. Robert Rauschenberg was one of the first artists to test the new technical and aesthetic frontiers, now so familiar, in response to the communications dynamism of the electronic age. He emerged as an influential leader of the avant-garde in the 1950’s with his “Combine Painting,” (incorporating everyday objects into his paintings), which had a great influence on the future Pop artists. Rauschenberg has stated that his intention was to “act in the gap between life and art.” During the 1960’s Rauschenberg began to do silk screens in which he overlaid images, making collage-like compositions, that used references from current events, art history and literature, combining newspaper images and fine art reproductions with planes of color and handwritten scrawls. For Rauschenberg, paint, reproduced images, and common objects carry equal weight and significance. The 1970’s found Rauschenberg experimenting again, with his art becoming more abstract as in his “Venetian” series that utilized circular plexi-glass plates on which he placed large constructed objects and his “Jammers” series that featured cloth panels and poles, diaphanous fabric silk-screens and wall panels suggestive of interiors. Rauschenberg is not only a painter, but has also been involved in performance art and theatre design, and his art can be found in most of the major museums of Modern art throughout the world.