Robert Rauschenberg

by Robert Rauschenberg (Artist), Yve-Alain Bois (Contributor), Andrianna Campbell (Contributor)

“Offering both a complete overview and fresh perspective of the momentous artist, nearly everything that Rauschenberg tackled in his career is included here, including his printmaking, photography, and famous silkscreen paintings.” – Interview Magazine The early 1950s, when Robert Rauschenberg launched his career, was the heyday of the heroic gestural painting of Abstract Expressionism. Rauschenberg challenged this tradition, inventing new intermedia forms of art making that shaped the decades to come. Published in conjunction with the inaugural 21st-century retrospective of this defining figure, this book offers fresh perspectives on Rauschenberg’s widely celebrated Combines (1954–64) and silkscreen paintings (1962–64). It also illuminates lesser-known periods within Rauschenberg’s career, including his work of the early 1950s and that from the late 1960s onward, now compelling and prescient to contemporary eyes.

Sixteen short essays by eminent scholars and emerging new writers focus on specific moments within Rauschenberg’s career, examining his creative production across an extraordinary range of media. Integrating new scholarship, documentary imagery and archival materials, Robert Rauschenberg is the first comprehensive catalogue of the artist’s career in 20 years, an important contribution to American cultural and intellectual history across disciplines and a necessary volume for anyone interested in art of the present day.

Over the span of six decades, Robert Rauschenberg (1925–2008) worked in an astonishing range of mediums including painting, sculpture, prints, photography and performance, and became one of the most transformative figures in postwar American culture. Working alone and in collaboration with artists, dancers, musicians and writers, Rauschenberg produced a vast body of work that continues to resonate today.

Genres: Art, Nonfiction

392 pages, Hardcover

First published September 1, 1997

About the author

Milton Ernest "Robert" Rauschenberg was an American painter and graphic artist whose early works anticipated the Pop art movement.

Reviews

[Nativeabuse · Rating 4 out of 5]

An alright book, but I got kind of annoyed by the fact that the book doesn't list in what collections each particular piece is held in the way most art books do. Other than that it is a good book that has a nice all around overview of Raushenberg's work instead of focusing mostly on Combine paintings the way most books on him do.

[Anthony · Rating 4 out of 5]

nice essays by rosalind krauss, trisha brown and others, with hundreds of pages of color reproductions

[Clever Name · Rating 5 out of 5]

Retrospective of a phenomenal body of work.