Robert Rauschenberg

American, 1925–2008

Rauschenberg was born in Port Arthur, Texas. He knew very little about art until he visited an art museum during World War II, while serving in the U.S. Navy, and discovered his affinity for drawing. This led him to study in Paris on the G.I. Bill. Less than a year later, he moved back to the United States to attend Black Mountain College in North Carolina before eventually settling in New York. He found his signature mode by embracing materials traditionally outside of the artist’s reach, terming his pieces “Combines.” His work has been featured in exhibitions at museums and galleries, including The Museum of Modern Art, New York City; the Galerie Renée Ziegler, Zurich; the Philadelphia Museum of Art; and the Musée National d’Art Moderne, Paris. Before his death in 2008 Rauschenberg started The Rauschenberg Foundation to spread art as well as “world peace and understanding.”