ROBERT RAUSCHENBERG

Robert Rauschenberg was born Milton Ernest Rauschenberg on October 22, 1925 in Port Arthur, Texas to a working-class family. Initially attending University of Texas, Austin for pharmacology and then serving as a medical technician in the Navy Hospital Corps during the second world war, Rauschenberg began his art training at the Kansas State University in 1947. He continued his training at Academie Julian, Paris and later at Black Mountain College, North Carolina where he met fellow artist Cy Twombly, composer John Cage and choreographer Merce Cunningham.

Rauschenberg's first solo exhibition took place in 1953, which exhibited his famous White Paintings at the Betty Parsons Gallery, New YorK City. Rauschenberg began experimenting with texturizing his paintings with found objects like newsprint and cut pieces of clothing, dubbing his new mixed-media creations as combines .

Throughout his career, Rauschenberg worked in collaboration with many artists, most notably choreographer Merce Cunningham and his partner and famous composer John Cage to create elaborate performance art pieces. Rauschenberg held a ten-year partnership with the Merce Cunningham Dance Company, and later created sets for choreographers Paul Taylor and Trisha Brown.
As he gained popularity among the American art community, Rauschenberg had several large exhibits at the Jewish Museum in New York (1963), Whitechapel Gallery in London, Venice Biennale where he became the first American to receive the Biennale's first prize for painting in 1964.

In his later years, Rauschenberg continued to experiment with mixed media and found object processes and became interested in the space race, creating a series of paintings which combined silk-screen photographs of Kennedy and the moon landing. He was also a strong proponent of incorporating technology into the arts, co-founding Experiments in Art and Technology (E.A.T) with Bell Laboratories in 1966 and the Rauschenberg Overseas Cultural Interchange to combat U.S. Cold War policies of the time.
Rauschenberg died on May 12, 2008, leaving behind a legacy of progressive art practices that inspired artists such as Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein and Cindy Sherman, urging creators to create their own definitions of art.