Guide to the Catalogue
This installment of the Robert Rauschenberg catalogue raisonné includes all known paintings and sculptures completed by Rauschenberg between the years 1948 and 1953. The catalogue raisonné entries include photographs of each work and its title, series (if applicable), date, media, dimensions, and current owner with institutional credit lines and accession numbers (if applicable) and the studio registration number, followed by inscriptions, alternate titles, provenance, exhibitions, and literature.
All extant works that could be located were examined in person by Susan Davidson, an editor of this installment, usually accompanied by Robert Rauschenberg Foundation staff. Nonextant works are represented visually by black-and-white photographs taken in the 1940s to 1960s by Walter Auerbach, Allan Grant, Seymour Rosen, Aaron Siskind, and Rauschenberg himself as well as two unidentified photographers. Often, just a single photograph, which may include extraneous details and may not represent the work in its entirety, is available.
In addition to paintings and sculptures, the catalogue includes three important works on paper: This Is the First Half of a Print Designed to Exist in Passing Time, Automobile Tire Print, and Erased de Kooning Drawing (37, 104, 105).
Each work in the catalogue has been assigned a unique catalogue raisonné number, from 1 to 122. Works are ordered by the year of creation and, within each year, chronologically as determined by Rauschenberg’s known whereabouts, the studio where the work was completed, source material dating, the work’s inclusion in exhibitions, and/or any relevant inscriptions. This means, for example, that a work with a “ca. 1953” date may precede one with a “1953” date if “Dec. 53” is inscribed on the latter work.
The registration numbers assigned by the artist’s studio and, subsequently, by the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, which begin with “RRF,” are included for reference.
Each work is assigned a single title. Titles have been determined on the basis of (in order of priority) a relevant inscription by the artist; the title under which a work was first exhibited during the artist’s lifetime; a title indicated by the artist in interviews or correspondence; or a title recorded by the artist’s studio staff. When a work was assigned more than one title during Rauschenberg’s lifetime, his latest documented preference is privileged. When no documentation of a title assigned or accepted by the artist has been found, the formulation “Title unknown” is used.
In 1951, Rauschenberg began to work in series. When the title of a work that is part of a series is not identical to the series title (as it is for the White Paintings and the Black Paintings), the title of the work is followed by the series title in parentheses.
Alternate titles are recorded in the catalogue raisonné entries. These include other titles used by the artist and his studio; titles under which the work was first exhibited or published that differ from the title assigned here; and, in rare cases, titles inscribed on the work that differ from the artist’s latest documented preference.
In the 1991 catalogue for the exhibition Robert Rauschenberg: The Early 1950s, the curator, Walter Hopps, added descriptive titles in brackets to works he considered untitled to distinguish them from one another. These are not considered alternate titles. For ease of reference, they are included in the entries under “Literature” when Hopps and other authors used them in publications.
The date assigned to a work indicates the year in which it was completed. The artist sometimes executed a work over multiple spans of time; only the completion date of the final state is recorded. The catalogue abides by any date inscribed on the work by the artist, unless there is strong evidence that that date is incorrect.
The abbreviation “ca.” (for “circa”) is used when a work was likely completed in that year; when “ca.” is followed by a range of years, the work is understood to have likely been completed in one of the years within that range.
The materials and supports used in Rauschenberg’s works have been determined by examination of the works themselves, whenever possible, in conjunction with information provided in various documentary sources, including studio records, conservation records, and scientific testing, as well as consultation with conservators and other subject matter experts. To ensure accuracy in the description of the media, conservators were present at the examination of works made with nontraditional materials. Media for nonextant works were inferred from close examination of photographs and are followed in the entries by “(?).”
Media are listed in order from the most to the least visually dominant. When the artist incorporated a found object into a work, the object itself is identified rather than its medium. The presence of an artist’s frame—one that Rauschenberg himself made and applied to the work or that he recognized as integral to the work—is indicated by the inclusion and description of the frame in the list of media.
All works examined in person were remeasured for this catalogue, in centimeters; when a work could not be remeasured or was measured while framed, “approx.” precedes the dimensions. Dimensions reflect the longest measurements for height, width, and depth, with height preceding width preceding depth. For sculptures with variable or irregular dimensions and multiple components, the dimensions of individual components are provided rather than an overall measurement. When necessary, the abbreviations “h.” (height), “w.” (width), “d.” (depth), “l.” (length), and “diam.” (diameter) are used.
Measurements are given first in imperial units and then in metric, rounded to the nearest eighth of an inch and tenth of a centimeter (or tenth of a meter, for particularly large works), respectively. Dimensions are not provided for nonextant works unless the artist recorded the dimensions or the canvas was painted over, in which case the dimensions are understood to have been the same as those of the subsequent work.
Only inscriptions made by the artist are catalogued (with one exception, the inscription made by Jasper Johns on the label for Erased de Kooning Drawing [105]). Each inscription is transcribed verbatim, in italics, preceded by the location in roman type. Inscriptions on different lines or in slightly different locations in the same general area are separated by slashes. Inscriptions on paintings are on the front of the work unless otherwise noted. For works smaller than 12 inches (30.5 cm) tall or wide, the inscription’s position is not recorded.
The provenance of each work lists all its known owners, from earliest to latest. Gaps in the provenance are indicated by “(?)” for a single unidentified owner and “(. . .)” for multiple unidentified owners. Auctions and other public sales, long-term loans, and deposits by the artist and others are noted in brackets. When a work was consigned, the consignee appears in parentheses after the buyer. The final element of the provenance is the current owner.
A list of all exhibitions in which a work is known to have appeared is provided in the catalogue raisonné entry in chronological order along with its number in the catalogue, if applicable. Biennials and similar recurring exhibitions, benefit exhibitions held during Rauschenberg’s lifetime, and inaugural collection installations at newly opened museums are included, but other permanent-collection installations, festivals, art fairs, auction viewings, and long-term loans are not.
When the title of an exhibition is unknown, a descriptive title is given in roman.
A list of all the publications in which a work is meaningfully mentioned is provided in the catalogue raisonné entry, in chronological order. Differences between the published title of a work and the title assigned in the catalogue raisonné, apart from small variations or translations, are recorded; differences in date are not. Passing mentions and illustrations of works without any discussion of Rauschenberg or his oeuvre are not included, nor are auction catalogues, textbooks, general surveys, collection handbooks, guidebooks, dictionaries, encyclopedias, and the like. In the case of multiple editions, the most widely accessible edition is cited; for works published in multiple languages, the English-language edition is cited. In a small number of cases, an additional edition is catalogued if it differs significantly from the most accessible edition or the English-language version.
Page numbers listed after a given publication indicate text mentions, unless the abbreviation “ill.” or an additional number preceded by “fig.,” “pl.,” or “no.” appears in parentheses after the page number; in those cases, the citation is of an illustration. “N.p.” indicates that the publication, or a portion of it, is unpaginated.
Below, catalogue raisonné numbers appear in blue. Photographers, when known, are listed immediately after that number or, in the case of the essays and chronology, after the figure number. All artworks by Robert Rauschenberg are © Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, New York.
Artworks
1: Tony Walsh; photo © Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, New York. 2: Photo Robert Rauschenberg Papers, Robert Rauschenberg Foundation Archives, New York. 3, 6, 7, 8: Glen Cheriton; photo © Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, New York. 4, 11, 26, 29, 32, 33, 35, 36, 37 (cover), 45, 46, 80, 86, 100, 102, 109, 111, 112, 115, 118: Ron Amstutz; photo © Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, New York. 5: Photo from Paul Rhoads, The Work of Aaron Kurzen: A Monograph (pub. by author, 2023), p. 27, https://archive.org/details/kurzen-monograph/page/27/mode/1up. 9, 43, 54: Dan Bradica; photo © Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, New York. 10: Rick Coulby; photo courtesy Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. 12, 23, 24, 25, 74, 77, 78, 82, 85, 108, 117: Robert Rauschenberg; digitized image from negative, Vintage Proof (VP) Negatives and Contact Sheets, Robert Rauschenberg Foundation Archives, New York; photo © Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, New York. 13, 38, 95: Owen Conway; photo courtesy Gagosian. 14: Jonathan Urban; photo © Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, New York. 16, 27, 30, 61, 62: Caroline Philippone; photo courtesy The Menil Collection, Houston. 17, 103, 105, 114: Ben Blackwell; photo courtesy San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. 18, 21: Aaron Siskind; photo © Aaron Siskind/Virginia Museum of Fine Arts; photo courtesy Center for Creative Photography, The University of Arizona: Aaron Siskind Archive. 19, 20: Aaron Siskind; photo (detail) © Aaron Siskind/Virginia Museum of Fine Arts; photo courtesy Center for Creative Photography, The University of Arizona: Aaron Siskind Archive. 22: Robert LaPrelle; photo © Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, New York. 28: Lee Thompson/Flying Studio; photo © Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, New York. 31, 40, 42, 113, 116: Digital image © 2026 The Museum of Modern Art/Licensed by SCALA/Art Resource, NY. 34, 81, 104: Don Ross; photo courtesy San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. 37 (interior): Digital imaging by Elliot Spence; photo © Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, New York. 39: Photo courtesy National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. 41, 49, 106: Paul Hester; photo © Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, New York. 44: Jochen Littkemann; photo © Staatliche Museen zu Berlin–Preußischer Kulturebesitz National galerie. 47, 48, 50, 51, 53, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 63, 64, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 75, 76: Walter Auerbach; digitized image from negative, Vintage Proof (VP) Negatives and Contact Sheets, Robert Rauschenberg Foundation Archives, New York. 52: Matteo Deletto; photo © Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, New York. 65: Paul Hester; Photograph Collection, Robert Rauschenberg Foundation Archives, New York. 66: Mimmo Capone; Photograph Collection, Robert Rauschenberg Foundation Archives, New York. 79: Mauro Coen; photo courtesy Collection Carnovale, Rome. 83, 101, 120: Stefan Altenburger; photo © Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, New York. 84: Max Ehrengruber; photo courtesy Kunstmuseum Basel, Ankauf. 87: Robert Gerhardt; photo © Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. 88, 89, 90, 91, 93, 94, 95, 96, 97, 98: Allan Grant; photo © The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock. 92: Seymour Rosen; SPACES Collection at the John Michael Kohler Arts Center, Gift of SPACES and Kohler Foundation, Inc. 99: Photograph Collection, Robert Rauschenberg Foundation Archives, New York. 107: Will Lytch; photo courtesy USF Contemporary Art Museum. 110: Paul Hester; photo courtesy The Menil Collection, Houston. 119: Ian Reeves; photo © Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, New York. 121: Christopher Stach; photo © Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, New York. 122: Kevin Todora; photo © Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, New York
Catherine Craft, “Looking Back: Rauschenberg Before Black Mountain College”
Figs. 1, 2, 3: Caroline Philippone; photo of original photograph courtesy Menil Archives, The Menil Collection, Houston. Fig. 4: Special Collections, Robert Rauschenberg Foundation Library, New York. Fig. 5: TheHuntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens, San Marino, Calif. (21.2); photo © 2026 The Huntington Art Museum, San Marino, Calif. Fig. 6: Ron Amstutz; Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, New York (RRF 49.E001); photo © Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, New York. Fig. 7: Thomas Roach; photo © Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, New York. Fig. 8: Cameron Wittig; photo © Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, New York. Fig. 9: Courtesy Link Pearman Ludington. Fig. 10: Photograph Collection, Robert Rauschenberg Foundation Archives, New York. Fig. 11: Robert Rauschenberg; digitized image from negative, Vintage Proof (VP) Negatives and Contact Sheets, Robert Rauschenberg Foundation Archives, New York; photo © Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, New York
Terry Winters, “Rauschenberg’s Book of Genesis: This Is the First Half of a Print Designed to Exist in Passing Time”
Fig. 1: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Walker Evans Archive, 1994 (1994.253.452 [1]); artwork © Walker Evans Archive, The Metropolitan Museum of Art; photo Art Resource, NY; image copyright © The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Fig. 2: Hans Namuth; artworks pictured © 2026 The Barnett Newman Foundation/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York; photo © 1991 Hans Namuth Estate, courtesy Center for Creative Photography, University of Arizona, Tucson. Fig. 3: National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., Gift of Annalee Newman, in Honor of the 50th Anniversary of the National Gallery of Art (1988.57.1); artwork © 2026 The Barnett Newman Foundation/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York; photo courtesy National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Darby English, “Black Painting: An Act in the Gap”
Figs. 1, 2: Allan Grant; photo © The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Giorgio Di Domenico, “In a rich, false history”: Untitled (Scatole e Feticci Personali)
Fig. 1: Photo © Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, New York. Fig. 2: Caroline Philippone; photo courtesy The Menil Collection, Houston. Figs. 3, 5: Robert Rauschenberg; digitized image from negative, Vintage Proof (VP) Negatives and Contact Sheets, Robert Rauschenberg Foundation Archives, New York; photo © Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, New York. Fig. 4: Cathy Carver; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., Gift in honor of James T. Demetrion, Director, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, 1984–2001, by Robert and Aimee Lehrman, 2013 (13.7); artwork © 2026 The Joseph and Robert Cornell Memorial Foundation/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York; photo courtesy Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.
Helen Molesworth, “Erased de Kooning Drawing: The One Who Asked and the One Who Agreed”
Fig. 1: National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., Andrew W. Mellon Fund (1978.32.1); artwork © 2026 The Willem de Kooning Foundation/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York; photo courtesy National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. Fig. 2: Wallace Kirkland; photo © The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock; photo courtesy Wisconsin Historical Society, Madison. Fig. 3: Ron Amstutz; Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, New York (RRF 52.P005); photo of original suite of photographs © Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, New York. Fig. 4: Art Institute of Chicago, Through prior purchase of the Grant J. Pick purchase fund; through prior bequest of Sigmund E. Edelstone; Frederick W. Renshaw Acquistion fund; Estate of Walter Aitken; Alyce and Edwin DeCosta, Walter E. Heller Foundation, and Ada Turnbull Hertle funds; Wirt D. Walker Trust; Marian and Samuel Klasstorner, Mrs. Clive Runnells, Alfred and May Tiefenbronner Memorial, Boles C. and Hyacinth G. Drechney, Charles H. and Mary F. Worcester Collection, Mary and Leigh Block Endowment, Gladys N. Anderson, Benjamin Argile Memorial, Director’s, and Joyce Van Pilsum funds (2011.247); photo Art Institute of Chicago/Art Resource, NY. Fig. 5: Robert Rauschenberg; digitized image from negative, Vintage Proof (VP) Negatives and Contact Sheets, Robert Rauschenberg Foundation Archives, New York; photo © Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, New York. Figs 6, 7: Ben Blackwell; photo courtesy San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
Jennifer L. Roberts, “Listening to the Street: Automobile Tire Print”
Fig. 1: Robert Rauschenberg; digitized image from negative, Vintage Proof (VP) Negatives and Contact Sheets, Robert Rauschenberg Foundation Archives, New York; photo © Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, New York. Fig. 2: The Museum of Modern Art, New York, Acquired through the generosity of Mary M. and Sash A. Spencer and The Modern Women’s Fund (335.2018); artwork © 2026 Sari Dienes Foundation/Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY; digital image © The Museum of Modern Art/Licensed by SCALA/Art Resource, NY. Fig. 3: Ron Amstutz; Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, New York (RRF 63.D003); photo © Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, New York. Fig. 4: Photo from Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville, “Brevet d’invention” (1857) and “Certificat d’addition” (1859) (2010), First Sounds Facimile Series 2, ed. David Giovannoni, https://www.firstsounds.org/publications/facsimiles/FirstSounds_Facsimile_02.pdf
Leah Dickerman, “The History of Matter: Dirt Painting (for John Cage)”
Fig. 1: James Nelson; photo © Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, New York. Fig. 2: Photo Albers Foundation/Art Resource, NY; © The Josef and Anni Albers Foundation/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Fig. 3: Art Institute of Chicago, Gift of Studs Terkel in memory of Ida Terkel (2002.590); artwork © 2018 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/SIAE, Rome; photo Art Institute of Chicago/ Art Resource, NY. Figs 4, 5: Robert Rauschenberg; digitized image from negative, Vintage Proof (VP) Negatives and Contact Sheets, Robert Rauschenberg Foundation Archives, New York; photo © Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, New York. Fig. 6: Valenti Chasin; photo courtesy John Cage Trust
Tim Clifford and Helen Hsu, “Chronology, 1925–1953”
Figs. 1, 5, 10, 15: Photograph Collection, Robert Rauschenberg Foundation Archives, New York. Figs. 2, 4: Caroline Philippone; photo courtesy Menil Archives, The Menil Collection, Houston. Fig. 3: Caroline Philippone; photo of original photograph courtesy Menil Archives, The Menil Collection, Houston. Fig. 6: Courtesy Hubler Family. Fig. 7: Tony Walsh; photo © Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, New York. Fig. 8: Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center, Asheville, N.C., The Estate of Hazel Larsen Archer Collection (2006.26.72); artwork © Erika Archer Zarow; photo courtesy Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center, Asheville, N.C. Fig. 9: Trude Guermonprez (Elsesser); photo courtesy Western Regional Archives, State Archives of North Carolina, Asheville. Fig. 11: Courtesy Susan Weil. Fig. 12: Wallace Kirkland; photo © The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock; photo courtesy Wisconsin Historical Society, Madison. Figs. 13, 17: Digital image © 2026 The Museum of Modern Art/Licensed by SCALA/Art Resource, NY. Fig. 14: Gift of The Estate of Sylvia Sleigh Alloway, Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles; photo courtesy Getty Research Institute. Fig. 16, 25: Digitized image from negative, Vintage Proof (VP) Negatives and Contact Sheets, Robert Rauschenberg Foundation Archives, New York; photo © Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, New York. Figs. 18, 19, 20, 21, 23: Robert Rauschenberg; digitized image from negative, Vintage Proof (VP) Negatives and Contact Sheets, Robert Rauschenberg Foundation Archives, New York; photo © Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, New York. Fig. 22: Allan Grant; photo © The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock. Fig. 24: Dorothy Zeidman
Eric Banks served as a consulting editor of this publication. He is the director of the New York Institute for the Humanities at the New York Public Library and was formerly a senior editor of Artforum and the editor in chief of Bookforum. He has contributed essays to monographs on a number of artists, including Franz West, Grant Wood, and Christopher Wool, and has edited numerous catalogues and collections of artists’ writings. In 2011–13, he served as the president of the National Book Critics Circle and, in 2017 and 2020, as a member of the jury that awards the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.
Julia Blaut is Editor, Catalogue Raisonné, and Senior Curator at the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, New York. Since 2013, she has led many of the Foundation’s curatorial, research, and scholarly initiatives, including collaborations with graduate students in art history and conservation. As an assistant curator at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, she worked on Rauschenberg’s late-career retrospective (1997–99). She has curated, taught, and published widely in the field of postwar American art.
Tim Clifford is Senior Researcher, Catalogue Raisonné, at the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, New York. He is a coauthor, with Jack Flam and Katy Rogers, of Robert Motherwell: 100 Years (2015) and Robert Motherwell Paintings and Collages: A Catalogue Raisonné, 1941–1991 (2012). In 2015, he was the guest curator of Robert Motherwell: A Centennial Celebration at the Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. He currently serves on the Board of Directors of the Dedalus Foundation.
Catherine Craft is Senior Curator at the Nasher Sculpture Center, Dallas, where she has organized exhibitions of the work of Jean (Hans) Arp, Nairy Baghramian, Carol Bove, Melvin Edwards, and Robert Rauschenberg. A scholar of the Dada and Neo-Dada movements, she is the author of An Audience of Artists: Dada, Neo-Dada, and the Emergence of Abstract Expressionism (2012) and of monographs on Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns.
Susan Davidson served as an editor of this publication. A curator and an art historian, she has been engaged with Robert Rauschenberg’s artwork since 1990. She was the co-curator, with Walter Hopps, of the definitive Robert Rauschenberg: A Retrospective, organized by the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York (1997–99), and the assistant curator of Hopps’s groundbreaking Robert Rauschenberg: The Early 1950s, organized by the Menil Collection, Houston (1991–93). In addition to serving as Rauschenberg’s curatorial advisor from 2001 until his death in 2008 and as a Robert Rauschenberg Foundation board member from 2009 to 2014, she has curated numerous international exhibitions and published more than a dozen scholarly texts on the artist.
Giorgio Di Domenico is a research fellow at the Scuola Normale Superiore, Pisa, where he received his PhD in 2025 with a dissertation on the Italian reception of Surrealism from 1959 to 1977. He also studied at New York University’s Casa Italiana Zerilli-Marimò and was a research fellow at the Center for Italian Modern Art, New York. He is the author of a monograph on the 1970s artists’ magazine La Città di Riga and has published essays and articles on postwar Italian art, the relationship between Alberto Burri and Robert Rauschenberg, and the Italian reception of Dada and Surrealism. He writes and publishes regularly about contemporary art.
Leah Dickerman is Director of Research Programs at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York. During her long curatorial career at the museum, she has organized exhibitions that offer new perspectives on modern art, including Robert Rauschenberg: Among Friends (2017), One-Way Ticket: Jacob Lawrence’s Migration Series and Other Visions of the Great Movement North (2015), Diego Rivera: Murals for The Museum of Modern Art (2011–12), and Bauhaus 1919–1933: Workshops for Modernity (2009–10). From 2017 to 2021, she was Director of Editorial and Content Strategy at MoMA. Previously, she was an associate curator and the acting head of the Department of Modern and Contemporary Art at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. She has served on the editorial board of the journal October since 2001.
Darby English is the Carl Darling Buck Professor of Art History at the University of Chicago as well as an associate faculty member in the university’s Department of Visual Arts and Center for the Study of Race, Politics, and Culture. From 2014 to 2020, he was an adjunct curator in the Department of Painting and Sculpture at the Museum of Modern Art, New York. Among his published books are Charles Ray: Adam and Eve (2024), To Describe a Life: Notes from the Intersection of Art and Race Terror (2019), 1971: A Year in the Life of Color (2016), and How to See a Work of Art in Total Darkness (2007).
Helen Hsu is Associate Curator for Research at the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, New York. In 2025, she contributed essays to the exhibition catalogues for Five Friends: John Cage, Merce Cunning ham, Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg, Cy Twombly (Museum Brandhorst, Munich, and Museum Ludwig, Cologne), Rauschenberg: El uso de las imágenes (Fundación Juan March, Madrid), and Robert Rauschenberg’s New York: Pictures from the Real World (Museum of the City of New York). Hsu was previously an assistant curator at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York.
Helen Molesworth is a writer, podcaster, and curator. In 2023, Phaidon published Open Questions: Thirty Years of Writing About Art, an anthology of her essays. She is the host of Dialogues: The David Zwirner Podcast, featuring interviews with artists. Her museum exhibitions include Leap Before You Look: Black Mountain College, 1933–1957 (Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, et al.) This Will Have Been: Art, Love & Politics in the 1980s (Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago et al.); Part Object, Part Sculpture (Wexner Center for the Arts, Ohio State University, Columbus); and Work Ethic (Baltimore Museum of Art et al.). She is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Award for Curatorial Excellence from the Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard College, and the Clark Prize for Excellence in Art Writing.
Jennifer L. Roberts, an art historian specializing in modern and contemporary art, is the Drew Gilpin Faust Professor of the Humanities at Harvard University. Her scholarship focuses on the interface between the arts and the natural sciences, the history and theory of craft and materiality, and the history of print. She is the author of, among other titles, Contact: Art and the Pull of Print (2024), Jasper Johns/In Press: The Crosshatch Works and the Logic of Print (2012), and Robert Smithson and History (2004).
Terry Winters lives and works in New York City and Columbia County, New York. Since his first exhibition at Sonnabend Gallery in 1982, his work has been the subject of numerous solo exhibitions at museums across the United States and Europe. Most recently, in 2026, the Menil Collection, Houston, organized a survey of his works on paper.
The Robert Rauschenberg catalogue raisonné project officially began in 2022, but research and planning have been under way much longer. Foundational to the team’s research were Calvin Tomkins’s fastidious notes from interviews he conducted with Rauschenberg and his peers when preparing a 1964 New Yorker profile of the artist and a subsequent 1980 biography, Off the Wall: Robert Rauschenberg and the Art World of Our Time. Tomkins’s notes, which are now in the Museum of Modern Art Archives, New York, provided invaluable historical information about the context and creative network in which the artist thrived. Born in the same year, Rauschenberg and Tomkins enjoyed a decades-long friendship that greatly enhanced the artist’s reception both in the art world and outside it. Tomkins’s passing during Rauschenberg’s centenary may be the coda to the affinities they shared, many of which are traced in this catalogue.
The curator Walter Hopps and Rauschenberg solidified a long-standing working relationship in 1976, when Hopps, in his position as curator of twentieth-century art at the National Collection of Fine Arts, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., cast Rauschenberg as the living American artist best suited to honor the nation’s bicentennial and organized a midcareer retrospective of his work. Hopps’s revelatory exhibition Robert Rauschenberg: The Early 1950s, which traveled the country from 1991 to 1993, first brought to light a significant number of the works catalogued here. Susan Davidson served as assistant curator for the Early 1950s exhibition and subsequently as Hopps’s co-curator for Robert Rauschenberg: A Retrospective at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, which traveled from 1997 to 1999. As an editor of this publication, Davidson, in addition to examining in person every extant work that could be located, enriched the project with her firsthand experience of the artist and his studio and brought to it the insight and discernment that come with thirty-five years’ perspective on the artist’s formative period.
Roni Feinstein’s 1990 doctoral dissertation, “Random Order: The First Fifteen Years of Robert Rauschenberg’s Art, 1949–64,” was a pioneering contribution to the scholarly understanding of this period of the artist’s work. Feinstein conducted extensive interviews with Rauschenberg as well as with other artists, critics, and gallerists in his circle and, subsequently, generously shared her interviews and research with the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation. Also in 1990, Mary Lynn Kotz published the first edition of her biography of the artist, Rauschenberg: Art and Life; Kotz’s papers, which she kindly donated to the Foundation, were vital to the project. Similarly invaluable were the notes shared by Sarah Roberts from interviews she conducted for the Rauschenberg Research Project, launched online in 2013 by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.
Although Rauschenberg did not catalogue his own work, he surrounded himself with people who did. From 1965, when he purchased a building at 381 Lafayette Street, in the New York neighborhood now known as NoHo, he understood the value of employing professionals who were responsible for tracking his work. It is thanks to the dedication and meticulousness of David White, who began working as Rauschenberg’s curator in 1980; Bradley Jeffries, who managed Rauschenberg’s office and studio in Captiva, Florida; Thomas Buehler, who oversaw Rauschenberg’s warehouse, eventually serving as Senior Registrar at the Foundation, through 2016; and Gina Guy, who continues as Collections Manager at the Foundation, that the project was able to launch with a robust database and wealth of historical material already in place. While the Lafayette Street and Captiva locations provided ample space for housing invaluable ephemera, from exhibition checklists to the negatives of Rauschenberg’s early photographs, it was not until Francine Snyder, now Director of Archives, came on board in 2015 that this trove of research material was formed into a proper archive.
The project is deeply indebted to the private owners of early works by Rauschenberg who granted access to their works and patiently answered questions: Janet Rauschenberg Begneaud and Rick Begneaud, Collection Carnovale, Anthony and Catherine Harrison, Antonio Homem and Phokion Potamianos-Homem, Jasper Johns, Link Pearman Ludington, Andrew and Denise Saul, Lyn and Sam Schwab, Judith Shea, Dana and Jim Tananbaum, Alessandro Twombly, and Nancy Ganz Wright, as well as collectors who wish to remain anonymous and their staffs. Thanks are also owed to Alice Adams, Mark Francis, and Kara Vander Weg, Gagosian; David Lieber and Colin Pomphrey, David Zwirner; Maureen Pskowski, John Delk, and Ryan Smith at the Jasper Johns studio; and Queenie Wong, Sonnabend Collection.
The staffs of institutions and foundations were also very helpful in facilitating examinations of works that they own: Jay Dandy and Caitlin Haskell, Art Institute of Chicago; Nicola Del Roscio and Eleonora Di Erasmo, Cy Twombly Foundation; Hannah Green and Julia Murphy, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.; Werner Müller, Kunstmuseum Basel; David Aylsworth, Jan Burandt, Annie Daubert, Desi Dijkema, Kari Dodson, and Brad Epley, The Menil Collection, Houston; Michael Duffy, Megan Feingold, Lily Goldberg, Julie Reiter Greene, and Tasha Lutek, The Museum of Modern Art, New York; Sue Ann Chui, Margaret Doyle, Emily Ann Francisco, Jay Krueger, and James Meyer, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; Nancy Arms Simon, Paula De Cristofaro, Auriel Garza, Jennifer Hickey, Amanda Hunter Johnson, Sarah Roberts, and Natalya Swanson, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Julie Barten, Tracey Bashkoff, Lena Stringari, Hillary Torrence, and Jeffrey Warda, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; Kristin DuFrain and Tom Pruitt, University of South Florida, Tampa; and Matthew Skopek, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York.
In addition to those mentioned above in association with their institutions, the following conservators examined works in person and/or graciously answered questions: Sandra Amann, Dana Cranmer, Margaret Holben Ellis, Angela Eysler, Annika Finne, Christine Frohnert, Scott Gerson, Mary Gridley, Carol Mancusi-Ungaro, Delia Müller-Wüsten, Jennifer Myers, Adam Novak, Kristin Robinson, Jill Sterrett, and Joelle Wickens.
Essential research assistance was provided by Catherine Amé, Akademie der Künste, Berlin; Mark Coltrain and Kari Salisbury, Special Collections Research Center, Appalachian State University, Boone, N.C.; Marisa Bourgoin, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.; Greta Boninsegni, Archivio Fondazione Burri, Città di Castello, Italy; JT de la Torre and Bart H. Ryckbosch, Art Institute of Chicago; Stephanie Cassidy, Anki King, and Ksenia Nouril, Art Students League of New York; Ehren Gerhard, Asheville Art Museum, N.C.; Sharon Kent, Barbican Centre, London; Jeff Arnal and Alice Sebrell, Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center, Asheville, N.C.; Chuck Flournoy, Black Mountain College Studies Building Foundation, N.C.; Gabrielle Carlo, Buffalo AKG Art Museum, N.Y.; Barbara Bertozzi Castelli and Chloe Greisman, Castelli Gallery, New York; Grayson Agrella and Ashley Swinford, Center for Creative Photography, Tucson, Ariz.; Hannah Mandel, Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, N.Y.; Jean-Philippe Bonilli, Centre Pompidou, Paris; Nicole Rome and Madeleine Ward-Schultz, Columbus Museum of Art, Ohio; Rita Sobreiro Souther, Contemporary Jewish Museum, San Francisco; Zoe Heinsohn, Dallas Museum of Art; Monica McTighe and Maria Quinata, Dedalus Foundation, New York; James E. Hanks, Detroit Institute of Arts; Jason Andrew, Estate of Jack Tworkov, New York; Simon Crameri, Fondation Beyeler, Riehen/Basel, Switzerland; Elena Oselladore and Alice Scandiuzzi, Fondazione La Biennale di Venezia; Manasa Karthikeyan, Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco; Marcele Souto Yakabi, Fundação Bienal de São Paulo; Ashley Levine and Lauren Mahony, Gagosian; Jennifer Wcisel, Grand Rapids Art Museum, Mich.; Catherine Nichols, Hamburger Bahnhof–Nationalgalerie der Gegenwart, Berlin; Vanessa Arizmendi, Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; Sabine Brantl, Haus der Kunst, Munich; Aimee Soubier, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.; Linda Heüveldop, Institut Mathildenhöhe Darmstadt, Germany; Kate Abercrombie, Institute of Contemporary Art, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia; Kristina Parsons, Jewish Museum, New York; Tatiana Kelly, Kunsthalle Bern, Switzerland; Fiona Borowski and Juliane Hoffmanns, Kunsthalle Düsseldorf; Rainer Baum and Jasper Warzecha, Kunstmuseum Basel; Isabelle Malz, Kunst sammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Düsseldorf; Ira Baganz, Landes archiv Berlin; Daniel E. Oppenheimer, Literary Estate of Joel Oppenheimer; Grethe Røndal Christensen, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebæk, Denmark; Sean Logue, Matthew Marks Gallery; Lisa Barkley, Krista Hollis, and Corina Rogge, The Menil Collection, Houston; Jessica Jernigan, Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, Texas; Anna Tellgren, Moderna Museet, Stockholm; Marie Robin, Musée d’Arts de Nantes, France; Meritxell Colina, Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona; Meike Deilmann, Museum Ludwig, Cologne; Mary Richardson, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago; Stacy Perez, Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Emily Cushman, Christina Eliopoulos, Michelle Elligott, Hannah Kim, Jonathan Lill, Lynn Rother, and Laura Tighe, The Museum of Modern Art, New York; Bryan Holley, Nasher Museum of Art, Duke University, Durham, N.C.; Kelly Burton and Kelly Schulz, National Gallery of Art Archives, Washington, D.C.; Kolter McFall Campbell, Catie Huggins, and Benn Joseph, Northwestern University Archives, Evanston, Ill.; Tiera Ndlovu, Norton Museum of Art, West Palm Beach, Fla.; Carmen Sánchez-Terán, Ordovas, London; Viola McGowan, Pace Gallery; Jonathan Craig, Paul Taylor Archives, New York; Marco Rosin, Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice; Cristina Pattuelli, Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, N.Y.; Klara Vertes, Ray Johnson Estate, New York; Charles Duncan and Dana Martin, Richard Pousette-Dart Foundation, Suffern, N.Y.; Imani Benjamin-Wharton, Rose Library, Emory University, Atlanta; Michelle Berger, Meg Ocampo, and Layna White, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Katherine French, Sandman Legacy Project; Barbara Pollitt, Sari Dienes Foundation, Pomona, N.Y.; Yueh-Lin Chin, Seattle Art Museum; Anne Bruns Hyland, Smithsonian American Art Museum and Renwick Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.; Deborah Shapiro, Smithsonian Institution Archives, Washington, D.C.; David Horowitz, MaryLouise Napier, Anton Sherin, and Joan Young, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; Lisa Hennefeld, Historisches Archiv mit Rheinischem Bild archiv, Stadt Köln, Cologne; Franziska Eschenbach, Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus und Kunstbau München, Munich; Maria Högwall, Stockholms Stadsarkiv; Margherita Usberti, Sundaram Tagore Gallery; Lisa Cole and Chris Sutherns, Tate; Alison Fraser, The Poetry Collection, Rare & Special Books Collection, University at Buffalo, The State University of New York; Jonathan Trinque, Archives & Special Collections, University of Connecticut Library, Storrs; Rebecca Toov, University of Minnesota Archives, Minneapolis; Emma Cameron and Chloe K. Collins, Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Hartford, Conn.; Jill Vuchetich, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; Cherie Miller and Heather South, Western Regional Archives, State Archives of North Carolina, Asheville; Kristen Muenz, Wexner Center for the Arts, Ohio State University, Columbus; Andrey Lazarev, Whitechapel Gallery, London; Tara Hart, Maggie Mugharbel, Micah Musheno, and Madeline Smith, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; and Joa Baldinger, Roberta Bernstein, Lili Corbus Bezner, Emily Braun, Steve Elmendorf, Andrew Fabricant, William Fetterman, Simonetta Fraquelli, Mary Emma Harris, Caroline Huber, Frances Hynes, Natalia Indrimi, James S. Jaffe, Branden W. Joseph, John Kasmin, Eva Krampen Kosloski, James Mayor, Robert E. Meyerhoff, Thordis Moeller, Robert Pardo, Laura Paulson, Maria Antonella Pelizzari, Jeanette Preston, Neil Printz, Don Quaintance, Lucy Riley, Donald J. Saff, Jean Shahn, Deborah Solomon, and Carol Vogel.
Individuals who shared invaluable memories of their experiences with Rauschenberg include Mel Bochner, Susan Ginsburg, Robert Petersen, David Prentice, Dorothea Rockburne, Jo Sandman, Debbie Taylor, Susan Weil, Christian Wolff, and Charles Yoder. Help identifying various flora and fauna came from Lily Berniker, Jessica Goodheart, Lee Herman, Kate Kiseeva, and Randall Schuh, American Museum of Natural History, New York; Neil Roach, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass.; and Leslie Coleman, New York Botanical Garden, Bronx, N.Y.
Colleagues in the catalogue raisonné field provided expert advice and support, particularly Tiffany Bell, Abigael MacGibeny, Stephen Mack, Katy Rogers, Alex Ross, Marin Sullivan, Caitlin Sweeney, and Andrea Theil.
The authors unaffiliated with the Foundation who contributed essays to this catalogue—Catherine Craft, Giorgio Di Domenico, Leah Dickerman, Darby English, Helen Molesworth, Jennifer L. Roberts, and Terry Winters—were expansive, poetic, and rigorous in their meditations on Rauschenberg’s early works. Eric Banks, as consulting editor of the catalogue, commissioned the essays and performed much elegant work on them.
The project’s first copy editors, Kate Norment and Julian Myers-Szupinska, were indispensable. In bringing the publication to its final form, Miko McGinty, Rita Jules, Jennifer Bernstein, Tina Henderson, and Nolan Kelly were equal parts meticulous, patient, and visionary.
The catalogue raisonné would not be what it is without the score of new photographs of Rauschenberg’s works taken by Ron Amstutz over the past six years. Stefan Altenburger, Thomas Barratt, Dan Bradica, Glen Cheriton, Matteo Deletto, Paul Hester, Robert LaPrelle, Caroline Philippone, Ian Reeves, Peter Schälchli, Elliot Spence, Christopher Stach, Lee Thompson, Kevin Todora, Jonathan Urban, Tony Walsh, and Cameron Wittig also contributed essential photography.
The catalogue raisonné team at the Foundation worked tirelessly, for years, to bring forth this publication: Julia Blaut, Editor; Jackie Foster, Project Manager; Tim Clifford, Senior Researcher; Kate Claman, Researcher; Renae Jarrett, Researcher; Talia Shiroma, Researcher; and Erin O’Flynn, Image Coordinator. Former members of the team include Samuel Dylan Ewing, Senior Researcher; Eva Ives and Chiara Mannarino, Researchers; and Alicia Gallant, Magdalena Ramos Mullane, and Grace Pinnella, Interns. Colleagues at the Foundation, both present and past, staunchly supported the team in its work: in Curatorial, Kristen Clevenson, Helen Hsu, and Sophie Taylor; in Archives, Anne Boissonnault and Erika Hendrix; in Art Services, Elizabeth Hanley, Esperanza Mayobre, Sarah Moskowitz, James Nelson, Thomas Roach, Pedro Sanchez, and Matthew Whitenack; and in other departments, Jane Beck-Policoff, Sofia Cosentino, Carrell Courtright, Jonathan Gold, AJ Hodge, Christopher Park, Kate Reibel, Omar Sow, Karen Sutton, Sharon Ullman, and Robert Witherow.
Courtney J. Martin, Executive Director of the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, Berenice Sarafzadeh, Chief Operating Officer, and Sharon Kim, Chief Collections Officer, extend their particular thanks to Kathy Halbreich and Christy MacLear, former directors of the Foundation, for championing various stages of the catalogue raisonné, and to the members of the Foundation’s Board of Directors for their unflagging support in all matters: Peter Kraus, Chair; Christopher Rauschenberg, President; and Rocio Aranda-Alvarado, James-Keith Brown, Michelle Coffey, Carol T. Finley, Kellie E. Jones, Glenn Lowry, Stephen Petronio, and Lauren Hudgins Shuman. Profound gratitude is owed, again, to Janet Rauschenberg Begneaud, Rick Begneaud and Sandra Moy, Christopher Rauschenberg and Janet Stein, and Susan Weil.
Thank you, most of all, to Robert Rauschenberg.
