- March 26, 2025
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If you asked a man on the street — or a woman at her keyboard — to name the most important artist of the 20th century, chances are Picasso would be the answer. Do an internet search of the top 10 artists of the century, and you’ll also find names like Dali, Mondrian, Frida Kahlo, Jackson Pollack and the ubiquitous Andy Warhol.
Conspicuously absent from these lists, whether compiled by AI or an art website, is Robert Rauschenberg. That lack of visibility could soon change. In honor of the 100th anniversary of his birth, museums around the world are holding exhibitions of Rauschenberg’s multimedia works, which span six decades.
The Ringling Museum is one of them — its “Rauschenberg: A Centennial Celebration” show opened March 1 in two galleries of the museum’s Ulla R. and Arthur F. Searing Wing and runs through Aug. 3.
The exhibition includes works that The Ringling had in its collection, including pieces Rauschenberg created during his time on Captiva Island on Florida’s Gulf Coast, where he moved in 1968 and remained until his death 40 years later.
Like some of those who will see his art at The Ringling, Rauschenberg found solace in Florida’s natural beauty and enjoyed its outdoor recreational pursuits like fishing, boating and swimming. In a letter to an Orlando art critic, Rauschenberg called Captiva “ [t]he foundation of my life and my work; it is the source and reserve of my energies.”
The diverse pieces in The Ringling show are a reminder that while some artists keep returning to the same theme or medium that helped them achieve critical or commercial success, Rauschenberg never stopped experimenting. Until the end of his life, he was exploring the definition of art and crossing genres and disciplines in the process.
Rauschenberg wasn’t concerned about observing political or geographical boundaries either. He reached out to artists and craftsmen in other countries, some of which were deemed “politically sensitive,” with his Rauschenberg Overseas Cultural Interchange. Among the countries that he and his entourage of assistants visited to create and present work were China, Tibet, the USSR and East Germany.
The artist’s openness and curiosity about other cultures is reflected in one of his memorable quotes: “I feel as if the world is a friendly boy walking along in the sun.”
One of the fruits of Rauschenberg’s cross-border exploration can be seen at The Ringling. It’s the 40 x 30 in. color photograph “Bottles,” from the series, “Studies for Chinese Summerhall.”
Born in Port Arthur, Texas, to the son of utility company worker and his wife, Rauschenberg studied art at Black Mountain College in North Carolina under Bauhaus member Josef Albers after a stint in the U.S. Navy and art studies in Paris.
While at Black Mountain, Rauschenberg met composer John Cage, who was a major influence in his life. Cage’s imprint on Rauschenberg can literally be seen in the artist’s 1953 work, “Automobile Tire Print.” The composer drove his Ford Model A to achieve the tread mark in this early piece of Rauschenberg’s.
Rauschenberg’s friendship with Cage sparked a lifetime of interdisciplinary collaboration with artists in music, dance and film. A video of a dance performance choreographed by Trisha Brown with Rauschenberg’s set and costumes can be seen at The Ringling.
Like many artists of his generation, Rauschenberg gravitated to New York City in the 1950s. He was never part of the “In Crowd” of abstract expressionists who hung out at the Cedar Tavern in Greenwich Village, but found collaborators —both personal and professional — in New York. He married Susan Weil in 1950, and had a son, Christopher.
The couple divorced after three years when Rauschenberg realized that he was attracted to men.
Rauschenberg had a long-term relationship with abstract expressionist artist Jasper Johns and an affair with painter and sculptor Cy Twombly. But in the pre-Stonewall era in New York, Rauschenberg was private about his sexual identity. Some of his gallerists have been criticized over the years for downplaying this aspect of his life.
What made Rauschenberg’s reputation as an artistic revolutionary was his daring use of discarded objects in his pieces. He assembled collages that were hybrids of painting and sculpture that he dubbed “Combines.” Rauschenberg famously said, “I think a painting is more like the real world if it’s made out of the real world,” and he put this belief into action.
For his 1955 work, “Bed,” now in the Museum of Modern Art in New York, he took a pillow, sheet and a quilt, scribbled on them with a pen and splattered paint in the style of Pollack. The three-dimensional work is backed by wood.
Years later, Rauschenberg explained that he initially used detritus such as light bulbs, tires, umbrellas and cardboard boxes to create art because he was too poor to afford canvases. His impoverished state would change as the Combines took the international art world by storm.
Whether due to talent, timing or the long arm of the U.S. government, Rauschenberg became the first American to win the Grand Prize at the Venice Biennale in 1964. Suddenly, the outsider was the King of Cool. The art world maverick who lived by his own rules seemed to embody the cowboy ethos of the mythical Marlboro Man.
The wheeling and dealing by art dealers and State Department employees leading up to Rauschenberg’s triumph at the Biennale is the subject of an entertaining documentary, “Taking Venice.” The film screened at the 2024 Sarasota Film Festival and is worth a watch on one of the streaming platforms.
Later in the 1960s, Andy Warhol eclipsed Rauschenberg’s superstar stature with his huge silkscreens of celebrities and grocery store staples such as Campbell’s Soup cans and Brillo pad boxes. The man who once said, “In the future everyone will be famous for 15 minutes,” certainly got more than his fair share of fame.
Art historians agree that Warhol’s Pop Art creations would not have been possible without Rauschenberg’s pioneering Combines. Still, it was a two-way street because Rauschenberg also learned from Warhol.
The two artists became friends in the early 1960s. After visiting Warhol’s studio, Rauschenberg adopted silkscreen printing techniques he learned from Warhol to transfer photographs to canvas, which became a feature of his own work.
Among the most recognizable of these are Rauschenberg’s “Retroactive” series of the early 1960s incorporating images of President John F. Kennedy and astronauts as the Cold War-era U.S. engaged in a space race with the Soviet Union.
Such iconic works are recognizable to art lovers because they were part of a Rauschenberg retrospective organized by the Guggenheim Museum in 1997-98 that traveled to museums in Houston and Europe. Another Guggenheim retrospective of Rauschenberg’s works was held in 2010.
According to Ola Wlusek, The Ringling’s Keith D. Monda Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art, the last time the Sarasota museum held a Rauschenberg show was sometime in the 1980s. Wlusek joined The Ringling in 2018.
When The Ringling realized it had a gap in its exhibition schedule and that two galleries in the Searing Wing normally used for photography were free, Wlusek and her colleagues decided to join the other museums celebrating the 100th anniversary of Rauschenberg’s birth.
Given that the museum had some of the artist’s works in its collection that it had acquired or received as bequests, the show came about in a happy case of “serendipity,” she says.
Surely the iconoclastic artist who once erased a drawing of Willem De Kooning’s (with his permission) and exhibited the almost-blank paper with the title “Erased de Kooning Drawing” would approve of such institutional spontaneity.
