Robert Rauschenberg was born in Port Arthur, Texas on October 22, 1925 and passed away in Captiva, Florida, on May 12, 2008.  After briefly attending the University of Texas to study pharmacology and serving in the US Navy during World War II, he decided to study art.  He attended Kansas City Art Institute (1947-1948), and the Academie Julian, Paris (1947), where he met artist Susan Weil.  They later married and had a son, Christopher. He then attended Black Mountain College in North Carolina (1948-49) where he studied with Joseph Albers. At Black Mountain, Rauschenberg formed friendships with Merce Cunningham, John Cage, and David Tudor.  While at Black Mountain, he participated in Theatre Piece #1 by John Cage, which has since become acknowledged as the first “Happening.” He moved to New York in 1949 and attended the Art Students League where he worked with Morris Kantor and Vaclav Vytacil until 1952.

Rauschenberg’s first one-man show was at the Betty Parsons Gallery in 1951.  Prior to this, he and Susan Weil had experimented with photographic blueprints.  He subsequently produced the “white” paintings, “black” paintings and “red” paintings as well as constructions in wood, rock, and rope.  Beginning in 1953, he made his first “combines,” works that incorporated painting and various objects (a stuffed goat, a bed, tires).  This interplay of activity in different media is at the core of Rauschenberg’s work, which has been marked throughout his career by a sense of experiment and play.  He spent two years illustrating Dante’s Inferno, now owned by The Museum of Modern Art, New York.

He has been involved since the early 1950s in world touring with theater and dance, designing sets and costumes for Merce Cunningham, Paul Taylor, Viola Farber, Steve Paxton, Trisha Brown, and for his own productions. His sustaining involvement with performance has most recently produced Immerse, the set for the Merce Cunningham Dance Co.’s   MinEvent which debuted at the Joyce Theatre, September 1994.  He wrote the score and designed the costume for Trisha Brown’s solo performance If you couldn’t see me, which debuted at the Joyce Theatre, May 1994; plus was featured in October, 1996 at BAM with Mikhail Baryshnikov as You can see us. 

In 1962, Rauschenberg made his first lithograph at Universal Limited Art Editions (ULAE) in West Islip, New York at the insistence of the late Tatyana Grosman.  At the same time, he incorporated the silk-screen process in his paintings. In the mid-1960s, he experimented with the use of electronics in his art and in 1966, with electronics engineer Billy Klüver, co-founded Experiments in Art and Technology (E.A.T.) to promote cooperation between artists and engineers.  His five-part construction, Oracle, owned by the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, and Soundings, owned by Museum Ludwig in Cologne, are outgrowths of this collaboration.

Subsequent endeavors at ULAE as well as at Gemini G.E.L., the publisher/workshop in Los Angeles, resulted in limited edition books and lithographs done collaboratively with Alain Robbe-Grillet, Russian poet Andrei Voznesensky and American poet William Burroughs.  He has also done editions with Graphicstudio in Tampa, Florida; Styria Studio in New York; and Saff Tech Arts in Oxford, MD; as well as at his own studio, Untitled Press, established in 1971 on Florida’s Captiva Island.  Projects at these various studios have taken him to France, India, and China; he has also created works in Sweden, Israel, Switzerland, Italy, Japan, Sri Lanka and Thailand.

The Rauschenberg Overseas Culture Interchange (ROCI), begun in 1984, was an evolving exhibition of over 200 works by the artist, based on his visits and collaborations with artists and artisans throughout the world.  The global, peace-seeking odyssey of art and information included paintings, sculptures, videotapes, prints and photographs that reflect the artist’s respect for the qualities which mark the differences among the various cultures of the world.  The eight-year tour included exhibitions in Mexico, Chile, Venezuela, The Peoples Republic of China, Tibet, Japan, Cuba, Moscow in the former USSR, Berlin, Germany, Malaysia, and a finale exhibition at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC in 1991.

Rauschenberg founded and directs Change, Inc., a non-profit organization that provides emergency funds for artists, now in its 27th successful year.  The Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, started in 1990, also is a non-profit entity devoted to projects that will increase public awareness about subjects of vital interest to the artist.  They include medical research, education, the environment, the homeless, world hunger and global enhancement of the arts.  Recently, a series of prints/posters to benefit the people of Tibet, through the organization “Future Generations,” was published in December, 1996.

After creating the first Earth Day Poster in 1970, he helped mark the event’s 20th anniversary with a second poster in 1990.  The next year his bus billboards, “Last Turn—Your Turn” and “Ozone” drew attention to environmental problems in the modern world in all major US Cities.  For the United Nations Conference on Environment (UNCED) he created an original artwork that was unveiled at the United Nations in New York, and was used to produce the print “Earth Summit ‘92” for the conference in Rio De Janeiro, June 1-12.  

Another Robert Rauschenberg artwork, for a print/poster edition to promote global awareness of the United Nations Conference on World Population and Development, the “City Summit”, set for Cairo in the fall of 1994, was unveiled at the United Nations in New York on September 20, 1993.

In addition, Mr. Rauschenberg created the original artwork for the print to promote “Habitat”, the United Nations Conference on Human Settlements that took place in Istanbul, June, 1996.

Among Rauschenberg’s major museum exhibitions are those organized by: The Jewish Museum, New York (1963); Whitechapel Gallery, London (1964); Walker Art Center, Minneapolis (1965); The Museum of Modern Art, New York (1966, 1969); Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam (1968); Israel Museum, Jerusalem (1974); National Collection of Fine Arts, Washington (and tour, 1976-1977); Staatliche Kunsthalle, Berlin (1980) and tour including the Louisiana Museum, Copenhagen (1980) and the Tate Gallery, London, (1981) ; Centre Pompidou, Musee National d’Arte Moderne, Paris (1981); Foundation Maeght, Saint-Paul-de-Vence, France (1984); and the 41st Venice Biennale (1984); Fundacion Juan March, Madrid (1985) traveled to Fundacion Joan Miro, Barcelona (1985); Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston (and tour 1986-1987); The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (1987); Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (1990); The Menil Collection, Houston (and tour 1991-1993); Aktionsforum Praterinsel, Munich, Germany (1997); “Robert Rauschenberg: A Retrospective,” Solomon R. Guggenheim, Guggenheim Museum Soho and The Guggenheim at Ace Gallery, New York, September 19, 1997 - January 7, 1998; traveling to The Menil Collection, Contemporary Arts Museum, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, February 12 - May 17, 1998; Museum Ludwig, Cologne, June 26 - October 11, 1998; Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, November 20, 1998 -March 7, 1999.

Included in the many honors and awards that Rauschenberg has received are:  Grand Prize, 32nd Venice Biennale (1964); Creative Arts Award from Brandeis University (1978); Grand Prix d’Honneur at the International Exhibition of Graphic Art, Ljubljana, Yugoslavia (1979); Gold Medal for Graphics, Oslo, Norway (1979); Skowhegan Medal for Painting (1982); Grammy Award for the best album design for the musical group Talking Heads (1984); the Jerusalem Prize for Arts and Letters from the Friends of Bezalel Academy of Jerusalem, Philadelphia Chapter (1984).  He has been elected a Member of the American Academy of Arts and Science (1978); a Foreign Member of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts, Stockholm (1980); and Officer in the Ordre des Arts et Lettres, Ministry of Culture and Communication, France (1981); the Band of Honor from the Order of Andres Bello presented by the government of Venezuela (1985); Golden Plate Award, 25th Anniversary Salute to Excellence from the American Academy of Achievement (1986); International Center of Photography Art Award (1987); The Algur H. Meadows Award of Excellence in the Arts (1989);  Federal Design Achievement Award (1992); the National Medal of Arts Award presented by the President and First Lady on October 7, 1993; and the Second Hiroshima Art Prize was presented by the Hiroshima Museum of Contemporary Art during a ceremony on November 2, 1993; the “Leonardo Da Vinci” World Award of Arts 1995 presented by the World Cultural Council, Mexico City; Lifetime Achievement Award in Contemporary Sculpture presented by the International Sculpture Center, Washington, D.C. (1996); he’s been appointed a Fellow, Rhode Island School of Design (1981); and has received honorary doctoral degrees from Grinnell College in Iowa (1967), the University of South Florida in Tampa (1976), and New York University (1984).

For many years, Rauschenberg has shown in New York at Leo Castelli and Sonnabend galleries.  He has also exhibited at Knoedler, Gagosian, PaceMacGill, and most recently PaceWildenstein galleries.  In addition he exhibits at the Texas Gallery in Houston, the Wetterling Teo Gallery in Singapore and Stockholm, Il Gabbiano Gallery in Rome and the Jamileh Weber Gallery in Zurich.  His work is included in virtually every important international collection of contemporary art.