ROBERT RAUSCHENBERG

Robert Rauschenberg (1925-2008) was a prominent member of the American Post-War avant-garde. The artist's sculpture-painting hybrids known as Combines, broke through the two dimensionality of the canvas at a time when Abstract Expressionism dominated the contemporary scene. His seminal work, Erased de Kooning (1953), consisted of ritualistically wiping out an original drawing he purchased from the famed AbEx master, demonstrating an irreverent humor and the lasting influence of Marcel Duchamp. Rauschenberg, along with his friend and colleague Jasper Johns, created Neo-Dada works from commercial imagery and found objects, forseeing the emergence of Pop Art in the 1960s. Born in Port Arthur, TX, he studied at the famed Black Mountain College, where he met future collaborators John Cage and Merce Cunningham, and later at the Art Students League of New York, where he befriended Cy Twombly. His works are held in the collections of the Tate Gallery in London, The Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, and the Kunstmuseum Basel, among others.