Robert Rauschenberg: biography, works, photos

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

Starting his career as a representative of abstract expressionism, Rauschenberg came to pop art and conceptualism in his works. This artist is one of the key figures for American art.

Early years

Robert Rauschenberg was born in Port Arthur in 1925. But not in a Chinese port city, but in the American steppe state of Texas. His father was a German immigrant and worked at a local power plant, his mother was a Cherokee Indian. After school, the future artist studied pharmacology in his native Texas, in the city of Austin. However, he dropped out of school in the first year, and the outbreak of war served as a pretext for this. During this time, he worked as an orderly in a mental hospital.

The beginning of the creative path

At 21, Rauschenberg decided to study art. First he visits the Art Institute in Kansas City, then goes to Paris. Here he studies at the French Academy of Art Julian, where he meets his future wife Susan Weill, also an artist. Disappointed in the French school, in 1948 young people returned to America, to Black Mountain College in South Carolina. At this time, the "star" gathered herecomposition: artist Josef Albers, choreographer Merce Cunningham, composer John Cage. With the last two, Robert Rauschenberg is working on "Theatrical Play No. 1". It involved dance, music, work with a slide projector. The production is considered to be the forerunner of "happenings" - orchestrated conceptual events that gained popularity by the end of the 20th century. The first years after college, the artist was engaged in window dressing in New York.

One color painting

At the beginning of his career as an artist, Robert Rauschenberg created several series of monochrome paintings: "white painting", "black painting" and "red painting".

In "white painting" on a white background, the artist depicted black letters, numbers and symbols that were understandable to everyone. The works were created during a period when abstract expressionism was the dominant style in America. By introducing commonly understood symbols and real things into the picture, Rauschenberg destroyed the very abstractness of abstractionism. In a general cultural context, it looked pretty bold. Later, the artist will have another direction of white painting. On the illuminated white background, the shadows of the audience fell, actually creating a work of art. A lot of meanings were layered here: the endless variability of art, and its perception through the prism of individual experience, and the inevitable co-creation of the artist and the viewer.

"Black Painting" was a canvas with newspapers pasted on it, covered with black enamel. For the "red painting" the artist used newspaper clippings,nails, ropes and other debris.

In 1951, Robert Rauschenberg exhibited these works at the Betty Parsons Gallery. The paintings were booed by critics immediately. It seemed to be a complete failure. In 1952, his wife left the artist, unable to withstand his openly bisexual orientation and free behavior. A year later, Robert Rauschenberg continued to work with choreographer Cunningham. For more than ten years, he created scenery, costumes for his troupe, participated in the creation of scripts.

Erased De Kooning

This work was one of the key ones in the work of Rauschenberg. In 1953, the artist bought a graphic work by the then-famous abstract artist De Kooning. Instead of hanging the drawing in a frame over the sofa in the living room, Rauschenberg erased it and called it De Kooning's Erased Drawing. Thus, he secured authorship and created not only a new work of art, but also a new format of a work of art. Rauschenberg here anticipates postmodernism with its citation, co-authorship and imposition of meanings. After this picture, they started talking about the young artist.

Combined paintings

Rauschenberg stood at the origins of such a phenomenon as pop art style. Here, ordinary household items were used as objects of art and their elements. Within the framework of the “combined paintings”, the artist combined the most prosaic things, turning them into objects of art. By the way, these were not only paintings in the strict sensewords, but also installations, art objects and assemblages. The pop art style manifests itself even more clearly in the later works of Rauschenberg, when the artist begins to use the symbols of American pop culture and life in his “transfer drawings”, although already here he manifests himself in his ironic, but generally positive attitude towards the world around him..

One of the most famous "combination paintings" is called "Bed", it was created in 1956. The painting was a spring mattress of the artist, placed vertically and thoroughly smeared with paint, which was typical for abstract expressionism. I must say that this style was the first national American trend of the world level, therefore it had a sacred connotation for local avant-garde artists. Here, the technique of abstract expressionism was used with great irony when applying a thick layer of paint on an ordinary mattress, which suddenly turned out to be a work of art.

International recognition

In 1958, Robert Rauschenberg opened his solo exhibition at the Leo Castelli Gallery. This time his work was received favorably by connoisseurs. We can say that it was from this moment that the world fame of the artist began. In the early 60s, he began to create "transfer drawings". They were mirrored collages of newspapers and photographs, which the artist placed on a white background. According to the author's idea, popular symbols of American culture were supposed to collide with elements of artistic paintings.

In 1964the artist was presented with the main prize of the Venice Biennale. Despite the fact that even the Vatican spoke about the degradation of culture after this event, the pop art style was now officially recognized. Rauschenberg was rewarded not only morally, but also financially: the prices for his paintings instantly increased several times.

Experimenting with technology

In the 60s, Rauschenberg created a joint project with engineer Klyuver: the public association "Experiments in Art and Technology". During this time, he was working on "revolver" mills with plexiglass blades that symbolized the abundance of information in the modern world. In 1969, the artist received an invitation from the NASA Space Research Center, after which he created a cycle of lithographs "The Petrified Moon". In 1970, Rauschenberg opened a charitable organization for poor artists, and also built his home-workshop off the coast of Florida on Captiva Island. Here he died in the spring of 2008. In his last period of creativity, the master did not create anything stylistically new, continuing to work on collages.

Together with Andy Warhol, Rauschenberg was one of the five most significant pop art artists. One can hardly overestimate his influence on contemporary American art.