Robert Rauschenberg’s boundless experimentation and his rich collaborations with talented printers provides the focus for “Let the World In: Prints by Robert Rauschenberg from the National Gallery of Art and Related Collections.” The exhibition presents 58 outstanding prints, including some never before seen in a museum, on view at the National Gallery of Art through March 30, in the gallery’s West Building ground floor prints and drawings galleries.
“The National Gallery of Art is fortunate to have more than 400 prints by Robert Rauschenberg in its collection,” said Earl A. Powell III, director, National Gallery of Art. “This exhibition features the lithographs, screen prints and intaglios of an artist who has sustained extraordinary creative powers across more than five decades and who has launched printmaking in new directions.”
The exhibition, organized by the National Gallery of Art, takes its title from a statement made by the art historian Leo Steinberg, who wrote that Rauschenberg’s art “let the world in again,” referring to the artist’s integration of everyday objects and his use of representation at a time when abstraction dominated.
It is arranged chronologically in five galleries, starting with Rauschenberg’s prints from the early 1960s and ending in the current decade. Gifts on view from the artist and the print publisher Gemini GEL †a print workshop and publisher in Los Angeles †will include “Source (Speculations),” 1996, and “Vamp,” 2000, which incorporate Rauschenberg’s photographic images of street life taken when he traveled to Marrakech in 1999. The recent acquisition “Stunt Man II,” 1962, completes the series, and is on view with “Stunt Man I,” 1962, and “Stunt Man III,” 1962.
“Booster,” 1967, a key work produced at Gemini GEL, features a 6-foot-high x-ray image of Rauschenberg’s body. It was the largest hand pulled, single-sheet print ever made at the time, challenging painting’s dominance as a medium. Seemingly random images suffuse “Booster,” including a chair, an astronomical calendar, two drills and a photograph of a man in the midst of a long jump.
Examples from the vivid “Soviet/American Array,” 1988, series are on display, as well as “Preview,” 1974, whose iconic images †two antique cars surrounding a Greek kouros †are printed on layers of gauzy fabric that shift with the slightest breeze, causing corresponding shifts in appearance. Two works from the artist’s “Ruminations” series are included.
On loan from Rauschenberg is the first state of his seminal print “Accident,” 1963, a work never before on view in a museum. In its final version, Rauschenberg printed from a lithographic stone that had accidentally broken, emphasizing creative forces beyond his control. Two prints and a working proof from the 1987 “Bellini” series †the two prints on loan from the artist and Patricia Alper-Cohn and David I. Cohn, and the working proof on loan from print workshop Universal Limited Arts Edition (ULAE) †reveal the artist’s integration of his own photographs with images appropriated from great works of art from the past.
A selection of Rauschenberg’s 1991 “Shirtboards”†based on 1952 collages that used laundry cardboard †highlight the artist’s eagerness to experiment with whatever materials are available and of interest to him.
Rauschenberg (b 1925) grew up in Port Arthur, Texas, and received international attention starting in the 1950s when he expanded beyond Abstract Expressionism and Minimalist monochromatic paintings. In works he called “Combines,” he fused everyday objects in a blend of painting and sculpture.
Many credit Rauschenberg with bridging the gap between Abstract Expressionism and Pop Art. Today his work is included in virtually every important international collection of contemporary art.
The National Gallery of Art is on the National Mall between 3rd and 9th Streets and Constitution Avenue NW.
For information, 202-737-4215; TDD, 202-842-6176 or www.nga.gov .
