62 Untitled (Scatole e Feticci Personali), ca. 1953

Wood box, paint, printed paper, bird skull, fabric, photograph, ribbon, paper, string, thread, twine, feathers, tassels, bell, wire, and rhinestone

Box (closed): 21/8 × 45/8 × 13/4 in. (5.4 × 11.9 × 4.4 cm)

The Menil Collection, Houston, Purchased with funds provided by an anonymous donor (1992-05 DJ)

RRF 52.021

PROVENANCE

Cy Twombly

[Mary Velma Twombly, Lexington, Va., by deposit]

[public sale, Richard D. Shull, auctioneer, Lexington, Va., February 4, 1989]

Pamela and Henry Simpson, Lexington, Va., purchase at above, 1989

[Sotheby’s, New York, May 7, 1992, lot 299]

The Menil Collection, Houston, purchase at above, 1992

EXHIBITIONS

1950s

Galleria d’Arte Contemporanea, Florence, Scatole e costruzioni contemplative di Bob Rauschenberg, opened March 14, 1953. (likely shown)

Galleria dell’Obelisco, Rome, Bob Rauschenberg: Scatole e feticci personali, March 3–10, 1953.

1990s

Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., Robert Rauschenberg: The Early 1950s, June 15–August 11, 1991. Organized by Menil Collection, Houston. Traveled to Menil Collection, Houston, September 27, 1991–January 5, 1992; Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, February 8–April 19, 1992; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, May 14–August 16, 1992; Guggenheim Museum SoHo, New York, October 24, 1992–January 24, 1993. (shown in New York only)

Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, Texas, Robert Rauschenberg: Sculpture, October 22–December 31, 1995. Traveled to Museum of Contemporary Art, North Miami, Fla., April 26–July 28, 1996. no. 102

Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, Robert Rauschenberg: A Retrospective, September 19, 1997–January 7, 1998 (also Guggenheim Museum SoHo, New York, September 19, 1997–January 4, 1998, and Ace Gallery, New York, September 19–November 9, 1997). Traveled to Menil Collection, Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, and Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, February 13–May 17, 1998; Museum Ludwig, Cologne (as Robert Rauschenberg: Retrospektive), June 27–October 11, 1998; Museo Guggenheim Bilbao (as Robert Rauschenberg: Retrospectiva), November 21, 1998–March 7, 1999. no. 44

2000s

Menil Collection, Houston, How Artists Draw: Toward the Menil Drawing Institute and Study Center, February 15–May 18, 2008.

2020s

Menil Collection, Houston, The Curatorial Imagination of Walter Hopps, March 24–August 13, 2023.

LITERATURE

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. 118–19

Hopps, Walter. Robert Rauschenberg: The Early 1950s. Houston: Menil Collection; Houston Fine Art Press, 1991. Exhibition catalogue. p. 139 (pl. 86)

Turrell, Julia Brown, ed. Rauschenberg Sculpture. Fort Worth, Texas: Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, 1995. Exhibition catalogue. no. 102, p. 136 (pl. 102)

Hopps, Walter, and Susan Davidson. Robert Rauschenberg: A Retrospective. New York: Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, 1997. Exhibition catalogue. no. 44, p. 75 (pl. 44)

Tomkins, Calvin. “Master of Invention.” New Yorker 73, no. 31 (October 13, 1997). p. 92

2000s

Cullinan, Nicholas. “Double Exposure: Robert Rauschenberg’s and Cy Twombly’s Roman Holiday.” Burlington Magazine 150, no. 1264 (July 2008). p. 468 (fig. 36)

2010s

Roberts, Sarah. “Untitled (Elemental Sculpture) [steel flange and stone].” Rauschenberg Research Project, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, July 2013. (fig. 3)

Dickerman, Leah, and Achim Borchardt-Hume. Robert Rauschenberg. New York: Museum of Modern Art; London: Tate Publishing, 2016. Exhibition catalogue. p. 83 (pl. 47) (not exhibited)

2020s

Becker, Anne-Grit. Cy Twombly und Robert Rauschenberg: Bilder im Prozess. Munich: Metzel, 2020. p. 96 (fig. 29)

Russo, Carolyn. The Ascent of Rauschenberg: Reinventing the Art of Flight. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Books, 2025. pp. 27, 35 (ill.)