Robert Rauschenberg (First Edition)

“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.

Leah Dickerman is The Marlene Hess Curator of Painting and Sculpture, The Museum of Modern Art. Achim Borchardt-Hume is Director of Exhibitions, Tate Modern. Yve-Alain Bois is Professor of Art History, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton University. Andrianna Campbell is a Doctoral Candidate, CUNY Graduate Center. Hal Foster is Townsend Martin, Class of 1917, Professor of Art and Archaeology, Princeton University.  Mark Godfrey is Senior Curator, International Art (Europe and Americas), Tate Modern. Hiroko Ikegami is Associate Professor, Graduate School of Intercultural Studies, Kobe University. Branden Joseph is Frank Gallipoli Professor of Modern and Contemporary Art, Art History and Archaeology, Columbia University. Ed Krcma is Lecturer in Art History, University of East Anglia. Michelle Kuo is Editor in Chief, Artforum International Magazine. Pamela Lee is Jeanette and William Hayden Jones Professor in American Art and Culture, Stanford University. Emily Liebert is Curatorial Assistant, Department of Painting and Sculpture, The Museum of Modern Art. Richard Meyer is Robert and Ruth Halperin Professor in Art History, Stanford University. Helen Molesworth is Chief Curator, The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. Kate Nesin is Associate Curator, Art Institute of Chicago. Sarah Roberts is Andrew W. Mellon Associate Curator of Painting and Sculpture, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Catherine Wood is Senior Curator, International Art (Performance).