18 Should Love Come First, 1951

Oil, printed paper, and ink on canvas (?)

24 × 301/8 in. (61 × 76.4 cm)

Painted over by the artist to become Black Painting (no. 84)

RRF 51.001

EXHIBITION

1950s

Betty Parsons Gallery, New York, Paintings by Bob Rauschenberg, May 14–June 2, 1951.

LITERATURE

1970s

Robert Rauschenberg. Washington, D.C.: National Collection of Fine Arts, Smithsonian Institution, 1976. Exhibition catalogue. pp. 29 (ill.), 31 (not exhibited)

1980s

Tomkins, Calvin. Off the Wall: Robert Rauschenberg and the Art World of Our Time. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1980. p. 55

Feinstein, Roni. “The Unknown Early Robert Rauschenberg: The Betty Parsons Exhibition of 1951.” Arts Magazine (New York) 59, no. 5 (January 1985). pp. 128–29, 129 (fig. 8), 131

Bernstock, Judith E. “A New Interpretation of Rauschenberg’s Imagery.” Bruckmanns Pantheon: Internationale Jahreseitschrift für Kunst/International Annual Art Journal/Revue annuelle internationale d’art (Munich), no. 46 (1988). p. 150, 150 (fig. 2)

1990s

Feinstein, Roni. “Random Order: The First Fifteen Years of Robert Rauschenberg’s Art, 1949–1964.” PhD diss., New York University, 1990. ProQuest (303859753). pp. 68–71, 75, 82, 187, 215, 230, 437, 488, n.p. (fig. 12)

Hopps, Walter. Robert Rauschenberg: The Early 1950s. Houston: Menil Collection; Houston Fine Art Press, 1991. Exhibition catalogue. pp. 13, 28–29, 31–32, 44, 54 (pl. 18), 55, 153, 169, 173 (not exhibited)

Wainwright, Lisa. “Reading Junk: Thematic Imagery in the Art of Robert Rauschenberg from 1952 to 1964.” PhD diss., University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, 1993. ProQuest (304050074). pp. ix, 90, 135, 175, 219

Bois, Yve-Alain. “Early Lead.” Artforum 36, no. 1 (September 1997). p. 97

Feinstein, Roni. “Rauschenberg: Solutions for a Small Planet.” Art in America 86, no. 2 (February 1998). pp. 70, 72

Jäger, Joachim. Das zivilisierte Bild: Robert Rauschenberg und seine Combine-Paintings der Jahre 1960–1962. Klagenfurt, Austria: Ritter, 1999. pp. 20 (no. 1), 21, 55, 113

2000s

Mattison, Robert S. Robert Rauschenberg: Breaking Boundaries. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2003. p. 50

Schimmel, Paul. Robert Rauschenberg: Combines. Los Angeles: Museum of Contemporary Art, 2005. Exhibition catalogue. pp. 202, 248 (ill.), 248–49 (not exhibited)

Tomkins, Calvin. Off the Wall: A Portrait of Robert Rauschenberg. New York: Picador, 2005. p. 50

Katz, Jonathan. “‘Committing the Perfect Crime’: Sexuality, Assemblage, and the Postmodern Turn in American Art.” Art Journal 67, no. 1 (Spring 2008). pp. 38 (ill.), 39–41, 43–44

2010s

Craft, Catherine. Robert Rauschenberg. London: Phaidon, 2013. pp. 10, 17 (no. 11)

Davidson, Susan. “Mother of God.” Rauschenberg Research Project, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, July 2013.

Crow, Thomas. The Long March of Pop: Art, Music, and Design, 1930–1995. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2014. pp. 55–56, 56 (fig. 42), 63, 72

Hopps, Walter. “Robert Rauschenberg.” In The Dream Colony: A Life in Art, by Walter Hopps pp. 237–55. New York: Bloomsbury, 2017. p. 244

Kotz, Mary Lynn. Rauschenberg: Art and Life. 3rd ed. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 2018. p. 71