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Untitled is very much in keeping with the artist’s signature style and themes. Using photo-screenprinting, he appropriated various images of sport, technology, and advertising, and arranged them with little regard for consistent scale or the usual conventions of composition. The most striking and readable image is a photograph of a javelin thrower in the lower left, directly above oil derricks or construction cranes with diminutive workers positioning a steel tower. The slant of the crane mirrors the right leg of the athlete preparing to launch his javelin. The images of the athlete and the derricks have the normal orientation, as does the larger washed-out photograph of a technician working on a computer motherboard. The representation of a crowded start to a cross-country skiing race is seen in two vertical rectangles, both having been rotated ninety degrees to the left, the same positioning as the brightly colored cafeteria trays, stacked bowls, and plates, with knives, forks, and spoons shown above. About an eighth of the way down from the upper left corner, a band of bright orange-red with a puzzle-like pattern runs across the composition almost to the middle.
Although it is virtually impossible to read and understand every part of the print, still one persists in the attempt. The identification of the subjects of these appropriated images ultimately resists coming together into a singular fixed message. Rauschenberg was not interested in creating the illusion of reality. As he once said, “Any incentive to paint is as good as any other. There is no poor subject. Painting is always strongest when in spite of composition, color, etc. it appears as a fact, or an inevitability, as opposed to a souvenir or arrangement. Painting relates to both art and life. …I try to act in that gap between the two.” [1]
Notes:
[1] Miller, Dorothy, ed., “Artist’s Statement: Robert Rauschenberg,” in Sixteen Americans. Exhibition catalogue. (New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1959), 58.
ProvenanceFrom 1984
Reynolda House Museum of American Art, Winston-Salem, NC, given by the American Art Foundation through The Pace Gallery, New York on March 20, 1984. [1]
Notes:
[1] Letter, March 20, 1984, object file.
Exhibition History2023
Black Mountain College: Seedbed of American Art
Reynolda House Museum of American Art (3/10/2023-6/25/2023)
Published ReferencesReynolda House Museum of American Art, Reynolda: Her Muses, Her Stories , with contributions by Martha R. Severens and David Park Curry (Winston-Salem, N.C.: Reynolda House Museum of American Art affiliated with Wake Forest University, 2017). pg. 202, 203
DepartmentAmerican Art
Untitled
Artist
Robert Rauschenberg
(1925 - 2008)
Date1982
MediumScreenprint in colors
DimensionsFrame: 35 1/2 x 28 in. (90.2 x 71.1 cm)
Image (paper): 29 x 21 1/2 in. (73.7 x 54.6 cm)
SignedRAUSCHENBERG
Credit LineGift of the American Art Foundation
CopyrightArt © Robert Rauschenberg Foundation/Licensed by VAGA at Artist Rights Society (ARS), New York, NY
Object number1984.2.1.f
DescriptionRobert Rauschenberg’s famous and distinctive works of the 1950s, the Combines, conceptually and visually permeated his entire career. Just as they were assemblages of disparate objects, much of Rauschenberg’s printmaking consists of visual collages drawn from many sources.Untitled is very much in keeping with the artist’s signature style and themes. Using photo-screenprinting, he appropriated various images of sport, technology, and advertising, and arranged them with little regard for consistent scale or the usual conventions of composition. The most striking and readable image is a photograph of a javelin thrower in the lower left, directly above oil derricks or construction cranes with diminutive workers positioning a steel tower. The slant of the crane mirrors the right leg of the athlete preparing to launch his javelin. The images of the athlete and the derricks have the normal orientation, as does the larger washed-out photograph of a technician working on a computer motherboard. The representation of a crowded start to a cross-country skiing race is seen in two vertical rectangles, both having been rotated ninety degrees to the left, the same positioning as the brightly colored cafeteria trays, stacked bowls, and plates, with knives, forks, and spoons shown above. About an eighth of the way down from the upper left corner, a band of bright orange-red with a puzzle-like pattern runs across the composition almost to the middle.
Although it is virtually impossible to read and understand every part of the print, still one persists in the attempt. The identification of the subjects of these appropriated images ultimately resists coming together into a singular fixed message. Rauschenberg was not interested in creating the illusion of reality. As he once said, “Any incentive to paint is as good as any other. There is no poor subject. Painting is always strongest when in spite of composition, color, etc. it appears as a fact, or an inevitability, as opposed to a souvenir or arrangement. Painting relates to both art and life. …I try to act in that gap between the two.” [1]
Notes:
[1] Miller, Dorothy, ed., “Artist’s Statement: Robert Rauschenberg,” in Sixteen Americans. Exhibition catalogue. (New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1959), 58.
ProvenanceFrom 1984
Reynolda House Museum of American Art, Winston-Salem, NC, given by the American Art Foundation through The Pace Gallery, New York on March 20, 1984. [1]
Notes:
[1] Letter, March 20, 1984, object file.
Exhibition History2023
Black Mountain College: Seedbed of American Art
Reynolda House Museum of American Art (3/10/2023-6/25/2023)
Published ReferencesReynolda House Museum of American Art, Reynolda: Her Muses, Her Stories , with contributions by Martha R. Severens and David Park Curry (Winston-Salem, N.C.: Reynolda House Museum of American Art affiliated with Wake Forest University, 2017). pg. 202, 203
Status
Not on viewCollections