92 Music Box (Elemental Sculpture), 1953

Wood box, cut nails, nails, and stones

Approx. 113/4 × 61/4 × 61/4 in. (29.8 × 15.9 × 15.9 cm)

Present whereabouts unknown

RRF 53.034

PROVENANCE

Rachel Rosenthal, New York, purchase from the artist, ca. 1953–54

[auction sponsored by the Art Alliance of the Pasadena Art Museum, April 19, 1966, lot 23A]

Frederick and Marcia Weisman, Los Angeles, purchase at above, 1966

Dayton’s Gallery 12, Minneapolis, purchase, December 24, 1968

[Sotheby Parke Bernet, New York, November 17, 1971, lot 15]

Bill Bass Contemporary Painting and Sculpture, Chicago, purchase at above, 1971

[Sotheby & Co., London, April 3, 1974, lot 39]

Present whereabouts unknown

EXHIBITIONS

1950s

Stable Gallery, New York, Rauschenberg: Paintings and Sculpture, September 15–October 3, 1953.

1970s

University Galleries, Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, Small Environments, October 1972.

LITERATURE

1950s

Ashton, Dore. “57th Street: Bob Rauschenberg.” Art Digest 27, no. 20 (September 15, 1953). p. 25

Fitzsimmons, James. “Art.” Arts and Architecture 70, no. 10 (October 1953). p. 34

1960s

Calas, Nicolas. “Robert Rauschenberg.” Kulchur (New York) 4, no. 15 (Autumn 1964). p. 18

Forge, Andrew. Rauschenberg. New York: Harry N. Abrams, [1969]. pp. 166 (ill.), 168 (ill.)

1970s

Tōno, Yoshiaki. “Robert Rauschenberg: His Autobiography with Annotations.” Bijutsu Techo (Tokyo) 22, no. 326 (April 1970). p. 87 (ill.)

1980s

Feinstein, Roni. “The Early Work of Robert Rauschenberg: The White Paintings, the Black Paintings, and the Elemental Sculptures.” Arts Magazine (New York) 61, no. 1 (September 1986). pp. 33 (ill.), 36

Rose, Barbara. Rauschenberg. New York: Vintage Books, 1987. p. 63

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. 115–16, 120, 137–38, n.p. (fig. 31)

Hopps, Walter. Robert Rauschenberg: The Early 1950s. Houston: Menil Collection; Houston Fine Art Press, 1991. Exhibition catalogue. pp. 155, 157–58, 186 (pl. 113) (not exhibited)

2000s

Steinberg, Leo. Encounters with Rauschenberg (A Lavishly Illustrated Lecture). Houston: Menil Collection; Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000. p. 5, 5 (fig. 4)

Delfiner, Judith. “Quelques gouttes de sauvagerie sur Manhattan: La réception de Dada à New York, 1945–1957.” Cahiers du Musée national d’art moderne, no. 93 (Autumn 2005). p. 73 (ill.)

2010s

Delfiner, Judith. Double-Barrelled Gun: Dada aux États-Unis (1947–1957). Dijon: Les Presses du Réel, 2011. p. 238

Craft, Catherine. Robert Rauschenberg. London: Phaidon, 2013. pp. 25–26, 38 (no. 32)

Cotkin, George. “Erasure and Addition: Robert Rauschenberg 1953.” In Feast of Excess: A Cultural History of the New Sensibility, by George Cotkin, pp. 37–47. New York: Oxford University Press, 2015. p. 42