Rauschenberg sculptures, bio, ideas

Often described as the first postmodern artist, Robert Rauschenberg was a protean innovator whose work in painting, photography, sculpture, performance, and printmaking helped establish the ongoing concerns of contemporary art. That fall he enrolled at Black Mountain College in North Carolina in order to study with Josef Albers — , the renowned Bauhaus teacher, designer, and painter.

Pop art artists 1960s

Rauschenberg moved to New York City in fall and enrolled at the Art Students League, where he took classes intermittently through During this period he took time to return to Black Mountain for several shorter terms of study. His experiences and the friendships he formed there deeply influenced the improvisational use of materials and collaborative strategies that would define his career.

In fall , Rauschenberg spent six months traveling in Italy and North Africa with fellow artist Cy Twombly — A period of vigorous experimentation in culminated in two of his most controversial, now iconic works: Erased de Kooning Drawing and Automobile Tire Print both His best known body of work, the Combines —64 , paired representational elements—such as magazine and newspaper clippings, fragments of clothing, and construction debris and other items gathered in the streets of New York—with compositional strategies explored by the Abstract Expressionists.

Blurring the boundaries between painting, sculpture, and collage, these works earned Rauschenberg international acclaim by the mids. He designed costumes, lighting, and sets for the Merce Cunningham Dance Company from to , and in he began choreographing and performing in works of his own invention. His interest in collaborating with scientists and engineers led him to cofound Experiments in Art and Technology E.