american painter and graphic artist
“ Rauschenberg ” redirects hera. For early uses, see Rauschenberg ( disambiguation ) Milton Ernest “ Robert “ Rauschenberg ( October 22, 1925 – May 12, 2008 ) was an american painter and graphic artist whose early on work anticipated the Pop artwork drift. Rauschenberg is well known for his Combines ( 1954–1964 ), a group of artworks which incorporated casual objects as art materials and which blurred the distinctions between painting and sculpture. Rauschenberg was both a painter and a sculptor, but he besides worked with photography, printmaking, papermaking and performance. [ 1 ] [ 2 ] Rauschenberg received numerous awards during his closely 60-year aesthetic career. Among the most outstanding were the International Grand Prize in Painting at the 32nd Venice Biennale in 1964 and the National Medal of Arts in 1993. [ 3 ]

Rauschenberg lived and worked in New York City and on Captiva Island, Florida, until his death on May 12, 2008. [ 4 ]

Life and career [edit ]

Rauschenberg was born Milton Ernest Rauschenberg in Port Arthur, Texas, the son of Dora Carolina ( née Matson ) and Ernest R. Rauschenberg. [ 5 ] [ 6 ] [ 7 ] His don was of german and Cherokee ancestry and his mother of Dutch origin. [ 8 ] His church father worked for Gulf States Utilities, a light and world power ship’s company. His parents were fundamentalist Christians. [ 9 ] He had a younger baby named Janet Begneaud. [ 10 ] [ 11 ] At 18, Rauschenberg was admitted to the University of Texas at Austin where he began studying pharmacology, but he dropped out curtly after due to the trouble of the coursework—not realizing at this point that he was dyslectic —and because of his unwillingness to dissect a frog in biology class. [ 12 ] He was drafted into the United States Navy in 1944. Based in California, he served as a neuropsychiatric technician in a Navy hospital until his discharge in 1945 or 1946. [ 12 ] Rauschenberg subsequently studied at the Kansas City Art Institute and the Académie Julian in Paris, [ 13 ] France, where he met boyfriend art student Susan Weil. In 1948 Rauschenberg joined Weil in enrolling at Black Mountain College in North Carolina. [ 14 ] [ 15 ] At Black Mountain, Rauschenberg sought out Josef Albers, a laminitis of the Bauhaus in Germany, whom he had read about in an August 1948 issue of Time magazine. He hoped that Albers ‘ rigorous teaching methods might curb his accustomed sloppiness. [ 16 ] Albers ‘ preliminary design courses relied on rigid discipline that did not allow for any “ uninfluenced experiment. ” [ 17 ] [ 18 ] Rauschenberg became, in his own words, “ Albers ‘ dunce, the great case of what he was not talking about ”. [ 19 ] Although Rauschenberg considered Albers his most important teacher, he found a more compatible sensitivity in John Cage, an established composer of avant-garde music. Like Rauschenberg, Cage had moved away from the martinet teachings of his teacher, Arnold Schönberg, in favor of a more experimentalist access to music. cage provided Rauschenberg with much-needed support and encouragement during the early years of his career, and the two remained friends and aesthetic collaborators for decades to follow. [ 16 ] From 1949 to 1952 Rauschenberg studied with Vaclav Vytlacil and Morris Kantor at the Art Students League of New York, [ 20 ] where he met boyfriend artists Knox Martin and Cy Twombly. [ 21 ] Rauschenberg married Susan Weil in the summer of 1950 at the Weil family home in Outer Island, Connecticut. Their only child, Christopher, was born July 16, 1951. The two separated in June 1952 and divorced in 1953. [ 22 ] Thereafter, Rauschenberg had romantic relationships with fellow artists Cy Twombly and Jasper Johns, among others. [ 23 ] [ 24 ] His partner for the concluding 25 years of his life was artist Darryl Pottorf, [ 25 ] his early adjunct. [ 20 ] In the 1970s he moved into NoHo in Manhattan in New York City. [ 26 ] Rauschenberg purchased the Beach House, his beginning place on Captiva Island, on July 26, 1968. however, the property did not become his permanent mansion until the fall of 1970. [ 27 ]

death [edit ]

Rauschenberg died of heart failure on May 12, 2008, on Captiva Island, Florida. [ 28 ] [ 29 ]

artistic contribution [edit ]

Rauschenberg ‘s approach was sometimes called “ Neo-Dadaist, ” a tag he shared with the painter Jasper Johns. [ 30 ] Rauschenberg famously stated that “ painting relates to both art and life, ” and he wanted to work “ in the gap between the two. ” [ 31 ] Like many of his Dadaist predecessors, Rauschenberg questioned the distinction between art objects and casual objects, and his habit of readymade materials reprised the intellectual issues raised by Marcel Duchamp ’ s Fountain ( 1917 ). Duchamp ’ s Dadaist influence can besides be observed in Jasper Johns ’ paintings of targets, numerals, and flags, which were familiar cultural symbols : “ things the mind already knows. ” [ 32 ] At Black Mountain College, Rauschenberg experimented with a assortment of artistic mediums including printmaking, drawing, photography, painting, sculpture, and theater ; his works much featured some combination of these. He created his Night Blooming paintings ( 1951 ) at Black Mountain by pressing pebbles and gravel into black pigment on canvas. From the fall of 1952 to the spring of 1953, Rauschenberg traveled in Italy and North Africa with his mate artist and partner Cy Twombly. There, he created collages and little sculptures, including the Scatole Personali and Feticci Personali, out of find materials. He exhibited them at galleries in Rome and Florence. [ 33 ] To Rauschenberg ‘s surprise, a number of the works sold ; many that did not he threw into the river Arno, following the suggestion of an artwork critic who reviewed his show. [ 34 ] [ 35 ] Upon his refund to New York City in 1953, Rauschenberg began creating sculpture with discover materials from his Lower Manhattan neighborhood, such as fight metal, wood, and intertwine. [ 36 ] Throughout the 1950s, Rauschenberg supported himself by designing shopfront windowpane displays for Tiffany & Co. and Bonwit Teller, first with Susan Weil and belated in partnership with Jasper Johns under the pseudonym Matson Jones. In a famously cited incidental of 1953, Rauschenberg requested a describe from the Abstract Expressionist painter Willem de Kooning for the express purpose of erasing it as an aesthetic affirmation. This conceptual work, titled Erased de Kooning Drawing, was executed with the elder artist ‘s consent. [ 37 ] [ 38 ] In 1961, Rauschenberg explored a similar conceptual approach by presenting an mind as the artwork itself. He was invited to participate in an exhibition at the Galerie Iris Clert in Paris, where artists were to present portraits of Clert, the gallery owner. Rauschenberg ‘s submission consisted of a telegram declaring “ This is a portrait of Iris Clert if I say thus. ” [ 19 ] By 1962, Rauschenberg ‘s paintings were beginning to incorporate not only establish objects but found images deoxyadenosine monophosphate well. After a sojourn to Andy Warhol ’ sulfur studio apartment that year, Rauschenberg began using a silkscreen work, normally reserved for commercial means of replica, to transfer photograph to canvas. [ 39 ] The silkscreen paintings made between 1962 and 1964 led critics to identify Rauschenberg ‘s work with Pop art. Rauschenberg had experimented with engineering in his artworks since the make of his early Combines in the mid-1950s, where he sometimes used working radios, clocks, and electric fans as sculptural materials. He late explored his interest in technology while working with Bell Laboratories inquiry scientist Billy Klüver. together they realized some of Rauschenberg ‘s most ambitious technology-based experiments, such as Soundings ( 1968 ), a inner light initiation which responded to ambient sound. In 1966, Klüver and Rauschenberg officially launched Experiments in Art and Technology ( E.A.T. ), a non-profit arrangement established to promote collaborations between artists and engineers. [ 40 ] [ 41 ]
Robert Rauschenberg, Untitled, 1963, oil, silkscreen, metallic, and formative on canvass In 1969, NASA invited Rauschenberg to witness the launch of Apollo 11. In reception to this landmark event, Rauschenberg created his Stoned Moon Series of lithograph. [ 42 ] This involved unite diagrams and other images from NASA ‘s archives with his own drawings and handwritten text. [ 43 ] [ 44 ] From 1970, Rauschenberg worked from his home and studio in Captiva, Florida. The beginning works he created in his modern studio were Cardboards ( 1971–72 ) and Early Egyptians ( 1973–74 ), for which he relied on locally sourced materials such as cardboard and sand. Where his previous works had often highlighted urban imagination and materials, Rauschenberg immediately favored the effect of natural fibers found in framework and paper. He printed on textiles using his solvent-transfer technique to make the Hoarfrost ( 1974–76 ) and Spread ( 1975–82 ) serial ; the latter featured large stretches of collaged framework on wood panels. Rauschenberg created his Jammer ( 1975–76 ) series using colorful fabrics inspired by his trip to Ahmedabad, India, a city celebrated for its textiles. The imageless simplicity of the Jammer serial is a fall contrast with the image-filled Hoarfrosts and the grittiness of his earliest works made in New York City. International travel became a central part of Rauschenberg ‘s artistic process after 1975. In 1984, Rauschenberg announced the beginning of his Rauschenberg Overseas Culture Interchange ( ROCI ) at the United Nations. Almost wholly funded by the artist, the ROCI project consisted of a seven-year enlistment to ten countries around the world. Rauschenberg took photograph in each location and made artworks inspired by the cultures he visited. The resulting works were displayed in a local exhibition in each nation. Rauschenberg often donated an artwork to a local anesthetic cultural initiation. [ 45 ] Beginning in the mid 1980s, Rauschenberg focused on silkscreening imagination onto a variety of differently treated metals, such as steel and mirrored aluminum. He created many serial of alleged “ alloy paintings, ” including : Borealis ( 1988–92 ), [ 46 ] Urban Bourbons ( 1988–1996 ), Phantoms ( 1991 ), and Night Shades ( 1991 ). [ 47 ] In summation, throughout the 1990s, Rauschenberg continued to utilize new materials while still working with more fundamental techniques. As separate of his engagement with the latest technical innovations, in his late painting series he transferred digital inkjet photographic images to a assortment of painting supports. For his Arcadian Retreats ( 1996 ) he transferred imagination to wet fresco. In keeping with his commitment to the environment, Rauschenberg used biodegradable dyes and pigments, and water quite than chemicals in the transportation process. [ 48 ]

The White Paintings, black paintings, and Red Paintings [edit ]

In 1951 Rauschenberg created his White Painting series in the custom of monochromatic painting established by Kazimir Malevich, who reduced painting to its most substantive qualities for an experience of aesthetic purity and eternity. [ 49 ] The White Paintings were shown at Eleanor Ward ‘s stable Gallery in New York in accrue 1953. Rauschenberg used casual white house paint and paint rollers to create legato, plain surfaces which at first appear as blank canvas. rather of perceiving them to be without subject, however, John Cage described the White Paintings as “ airports for the lights, shadows and particles ” ; [ 50 ] surfaces which reflected delicate atmospheric changes in the room. Rauschenberg himself said that they were affected by ambient conditions, “ indeed you could about tell how many people are in the room. ” Like the White Paintings, the black paintings of 1951–1953 were executed on multiple panels and were predominantly single tinge works. Rauschenberg applied flatness and glistening black rouge to textured grounds of newspaper on canvas, occasionally allowing the newspaper to remain visible. By 1953 Rauschenberg had moved from the White Painting and black painting series to the heightened expressionism of his Red Painting series. He regarded crimson as “ the most unmanageable color ” with which to paint, and accepted the challenge by dripping, paste, and squeezing layers of crimson pigment directly onto canvas grounds that included patterned framework, newspaper, wood, and nails. [ 51 ] The complex material surfaces of the Red Paintings were forerunners of Rauschenberg ‘s well-known Combine serial ( 1954-1964 ). [ 49 ]

Read more: Willem Dafoe

Combines [edit ]

Rauschenberg collected cast-off objects on the streets of New York City and brought them back to his studio apartment where he integrated them into his work. He claimed he “ wanted something other than what I could make myself and I wanted to use the surprise and the collectiveness and the generosity of finding surprises. [ … ] So the object itself was changed by its context and therefore it became a newly thing. ” [ 38 ] Rauschenberg ‘s gossip concerning the gap between artwork and animation provides the departure point for an understand of his contributions as an artist. [ 31 ] He saw the potential smasher in about anything ; he once said, “ I very feel good-for-nothing for people who think things like soap dishes or mirrors or Coke bottles are despicable, because they ‘re surrounded by things like that all day long, and it must make them miserable. ” [ 52 ] His Combine series endowed everyday objects with a new meaning by bringing them into the context of fine art alongside traditional painting materials. The Combines eliminated the boundaries between art and sculpture thus that both were award in a single work of artwork. While “ Combines ” technically refers to Rauschenberg ‘s workplace from 1954 to 1964, Rauschenberg continued to utilize casual objects such as dress, newspaper, urban debris, and cardboard throughout his artistic career .
Canyon, 1959, Combine painting Robert Rauschenberg,1959, Combine painting His transitional pieces that led to the creation of Combines were Charlene ( 1954 ) and Collection ( 1954/1955 ), where he collaged objects such as scarves, electric light bulbs, mirrors, and comic strips. Although Rauschenberg had implemented newspapers and patterned textiles in his black paintings and Red Paintings, in the Combines he gave everyday objects a bulge adequate to that of traditional paint materials. Considered one of the first of the Combines, Bed ( 1955 ) was created by smearing red paint across a banal quilt, tabloid, and pillow. The knead was hung vertically on the wall like a traditional paint. Because of the intimate connections of the materials to the artist ‘s own liveliness, Bed is much considered to be a self-portrait and a direct imprint of Rauschenberg ‘s inside consciousness. Some critics suggested the oeuvre could be read as a symbol for violence and rape, [ 53 ] but Rauschenberg described Bed as “ one of the friendliest pictures I ’ ve always painted. ” [ 36 ] Among his most celebrated Combines are those that incorporate taxidermied animals, such as Monogram ( 1955–1959 ) which includes a thrust angora butt, and Canyon ( 1959 ), which features a stuffed golden eagle. Although the eagle was salvaged from the folderol, Canyon drew government wrath due to the 1940 Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act. [ 54 ] Critics originally viewed the Combines in terms of their courtly qualities : coloring material, texture, and composition. The formalist scene of the 1960s was by and by refuted by critic Leo Steinberg, who said that each Combine was “ a receptor open on which objects are scattered, on which data is entered. ” [ 55 ] According to Steinberg, the horizontality of what he called Rauschenberg ‘s “ flatcar picture flat ” had replaced the traditional verticality of painting, and subsequently allowed for the uniquely material-bound surfaces of Rauschenberg ‘s sour .

performance and dancing [edit ]

Rauschenberg began exploring his interest in dance after moving to New York in the early 1950s. He was beginning exposed to avant-garde dancing and performance art at Black Mountain College, where he participated in John Cage ‘s Theatre Piece No. 1 ( 1952 ), frequently considered the first Happening. He began designing sets, light, and costumes for Merce Cunningham and Paul Taylor. In the early 1960s he was involved in the radical dance-theater experiments at Judson Memorial Church in Greenwich Village, and he choreographed his first operation, Pelican ( 1963 ), for the Judson Dance Theater in May 1963. [ 56 ] Rauschenberg was conclusion friends with Cunningham-affiliated dancers including Carolyn Brown, Viola Farber, and Steve Paxton, all of whom featured in his choreograph works. Rauschenberg ‘s full-time connection to the Merce Cunningham Dance Company ended following its 1964 world enlistment. [ 57 ] In 1966, Rauschenberg created the Open Score performance for separate of 9 Evenings: Theatre and Engineering at the 69th Regiment Armory, New York. The series was implemental in the formation of Experiments in Art and Technology ( E.A.T. ). [ 58 ] [ 59 ] In 1977 Rauschenberg, Cunningham, and Cage reconnected as collaborators for the foremost clock time in thirteen years to create Travelogue ( 1977 ), for which Rauschenberg contributed the costume and set designs. [ 48 ] Rauschenberg did not choreograph his own works after 1967, but he continued to collaborate with other choreographers, including Trisha Brown, for the remainder of his artistic career .

Commissions [edit ]

Throughout his career, Rauschenberg designed numerous posters in support of causes that were important to him. In 1965, when Life magazine commissioned him to visualize a mod Inferno, he did not hesitate to vent his fury at the Vietnam War and other contemporaneous sociopolitical issues, including racial violence, neo-Nazism, political assassinations, and ecological catastrophe. [ 34 ] On December 30, 1979 the Miami Herald printed 650,000 copies of Tropic, its Sunday cartridge holder, with a embrace designed by Rauschenberg. In 1983, he won a Grammy Award for his album invention of Talking Heads ‘ album Speaking in Tongues. [ 60 ] In 1986 Rauschenberg was commissioned by BMW to paint a full size BMW 635 CSi for the sixth installment of the celebrated BMW Art Car Project. Rauschenberg ‘s cable car was the first in the project to feature reproductions of works from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, vitamin a good as his own photograph. In 1998, the Vatican commissioned a shape by Rauschenberg in honor of the Jubilee class 2000 to be displayed in the Padre Pio Liturgical Hall, San Giovanni Rotondo, Italy. Working around the composition of the concluding Judgement, Rauschenberg created The Happy Apocalypse ( 1999 ), a twenty-foot-long maquette. It was ultimately rejected by the Vatican on the grounds that Rauschenberg ‘s depiction of God as a satellite dish was an inappropriate theological address. [ 61 ]

Works [edit ]

  • Robert Rauschenberg, Retroactive II, 1963, silkscreen paint
  • Robert Rauschenberg with Estate ( 1963 ), in a photograph at Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, February 1968

Exhibitions [edit ]

Rauschenberg had his first solo exhibition at the Betty Parsons Gallery in give 1951. [ 62 ] [ 63 ] In 1953, while in Italy, he was noted by Irene Brin and Gaspero del Corso and they organized his first european exhibition in their celebrated gallery in Rome. [ 33 ] In 1953, Eleanor Ward invited Rauschenberg to participate in a joint exhibition with Cy Twombly at the stable Gallery. In his second solo exhibition in New York at the Charles Egan Gallery in 1954, Rauschenberg presented his Red Paintings ( 1953–1953 ) and Combines ( 1954–1964 ). [ 64 ] [ 65 ] Leo Castelli mounted a solo exhibition of Rauschenberg ‘s Combines in 1958. The only sale was an acquisition by Castelli himself of Bed ( 1955 ), now in the solicitation of the Museum of Modern Art, New York. [ 66 ] Rauschenberg ‘s first gear career retrospective was organized by the Jewish Museum, New York, in 1963. In 1964 he became one of the first american english artists to win the International Grand Prize in Painting at the Venice Biennale ( Mark Tobey and James Whistler had previously won painting prizes in 1895 and 1958 respectively ). A mid-career retrospective was organized by the National Collection of Fine Arts ( now the Smithsonian American Art Museum ), Washington, D.C., and traveled throughout the United States between 1976 and 1978. [ 48 ] [ 67 ] In the 1990s a retrospective was held at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York ( 1997 ), which traveled to museums in Houston, Cologne, and Bilbao through 1999. [ 68 ] An exhibition of Combines was presented at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York ( 2005 ; traveled to Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, and Moderna Museet, Stockholm, through 2007 ). Rauschenberg ‘s first posthumous retrospective was mounted at Tate Modern ( 2016 ; traveled to Museum of Modern Art, New York, and San Francisco Museum of Modern Art through 2017 ). [ 69 ] farther exhibitions include : Robert Rauschenberg: Jammers, Gagosian Gallery, London ( 2013 ) ; Robert Rauschenberg: The Fulton Street Studio, 1953–54, Craig F. Starr Associates ( 2014 ) ; A Visual Lexicon, Leo Castelli Gallery ( 2014 ) ; Robert Rauschenberg: Works on Metal, Gagosian Gallery, Beverly Hills ( 2014 ) ; [ 70 ] Rauschenberg in China, Ullens Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing ( 2016 ) ; and Rauschenberg: The 1/4 Mile at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art ( 2018–2019 ). [ 71 ]

bequest [edit ]

Rauschenberg believed strongly in the power of art as a catalyst for social change. The Rauschenberg Overseas Culture Interchange ( ROCI ) began in 1984 as an feat to spark international dialogue and enhance cultural understanding through aesthetic expression. A ROCI exhibition went on see at the National Gallery of Art, D.C., in 1991, [ 72 ] concluding a ten-country tour : Mexico, Chile, Venezuela, China, Tibet, Japan, Cuba, U.S.S.R., Germany, and Malaysia. In 1970, Rauschenberg created a program called Change, Inc., to award erstwhile emergency grants of up to $ 1,000 to ocular artists based on fiscal want. [ 73 ] In 1990, Rauschenberg created the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation ( RRF ) to promote awareness of the causes he cared about, such as world peace, the environment and humanitarian issues. In 1986, Rauschenberg received the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement. [ 74 ] [ 75 ] He was awarded the National Medal of Arts by President Bill Clinton in 1993. In 2000, Rauschenberg was honored with amfAR ‘s Award of Excellence for Artistic Contributions to the Fight Against AIDS. [ 76 ] RRF today owns many works by Rauschenberg from every menstruation of his career. In 2011, the foundation presented The Private Collection of Robert Rauschenberg in collaboration with Gagosian Gallery, featuring selections from Rauschenberg ‘s personal art solicitation. Proceeds from the exhibition helped fund the foundation ‘s philanthropic activities. [ 77 ] besides in 2011, the foundation launched its “ Artist as Activist ” project and tempt artist Shepard Fairey to focus on an publish of his choice. The editioned bring he made was sold to raise funds for the Coalition for the Homeless. [ 78 ] RRF continues to support emerging artists and arts organizations with grants and philanthropic collaborations each year. The RRF has respective residency programs that take place at the foundation ‘s headquarters in New York and at the late artist ‘s property in Captiva Island, Florida. In 2013, Dale Eisinger of Complex ranked Open Score ( 1966 ) seventh in his list of the all-time great performance artwork works. [ 79 ]

art marketplace [edit ]

In 2010 Studio Painting ( 1960‑61 ), one of Rauschenberg ‘s Combines in the first place estimated at $ 6 million to $ 9 million, was bought from the solicitation of Michael Crichton for $ 11 million at Christie ‘s, New York. [ 80 ] In 2019, Christie ‘s sold the silkscreen painting Buffalo II ( 1964 ) for $ 88.8 million, shattering the artist ‘s former record .

Lobbying for artists ‘ resale royalties [edit ]

In the early 1970s, Rauschenberg lobbied U.S. Congress to pass a bill that would compensate artists when their solve is resold on the secondary coil market. Rauschenberg took up his battle for artist resale royalties after the cab baron Robert Scull sold separate of his solicitation of Abstract Expressionist and Pop art works for $ 2.2 million. Scull had primitively purchased Rauschenberg ‘s paintings Thaw ( 1958 ) and Double Feature ( 1959 ) for $ 900 and $ 2,500 respectively ; roughly a decade late Scull sold the pieces for $ 85,000 and $ 90,000 in a 1973 auction at Sotheby Parke Bernet in New York. [ 81 ] Rauschenberg ‘s lobby efforts were rewarded in 1976 when California governor Jerry Brown signed into law the California Resale Royalty Act of 1976. [ 82 ] The artist continued to pursue nationally resale royalties legislation following the California victory .

See besides [edit ]

References [edit ]

foster interpretation [edit ]