Robert Rauschenberg | |
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Robert Rauschenberg (1968)
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Born |
Milton Ernest Rauschenberg October 22, 1925 Port Arthur, Texas |
Died | May 12, 2008 Captiva, Florida |
(aged 82)
Nationality | American |
Education |
Kansas City Art Institute Académie Julian Black Mountain College Art Students League of New York |
Known for | Assemblage |
Notable work |
Canyon (1959) Monogram (1959) |
Movement | Neo-Dada, Abstract Expressionism |
Awards |
Leonardo da Vinci World Award of Arts (1995) Praemium Imperiale (1998) |
Milton Ernest "Robert" Rauschenberg (October 22, 1925 – May 12, 2008) was an American painter and graphic artist whose early works anticipated the pop art movement. Rauschenberg is well known for his "Combines" of the 1950s, in which non-traditional materials and objects were employed in innovative combinations. Rauschenberg was both a painter and a sculptor and the Combines are a combination of both, but he also worked with photography, printmaking, papermaking, and performance. He was awarded the National Medal of Arts in 1993. He became the recipient of the Leonardo da Vinci World Award of Arts in 1995 in recognition of his more than 40 years of fruitful artmaking.
Rauschenberg lived and worked in New York City as well as on Captiva Island, Florida until his death from heart failure on May 12, 2008.
Rauschenberg was born as Milton Ernest Rauschenberg in Port Arthur, Texas, the son of Dora Carolina (née Matson) and Ernest R. Rauschenberg. His father was of German and Cherokee ancestry and his mother of Anglo-Saxon descent. His parents were Fundamentalist Christians. Rauschenberg was dyslexic.
At 16, Rauschenberg was admitted to the University of Texas where he began studying pharmacy. He was drafted into the United States Navy in 1943. Based in California, he served as a mental hospital technician until his discharge in 1945.
Rauschenberg subsequently studied at the Kansas City Art Institute and the Académie Julian in Paris, France, where he met the painter Susan Weil. In 1948 Rauschenberg and Weil decided to attend Black Mountain College in North Carolina.