Each Theme features a curated selection of artworks and archival materials, providing a focused look at topics of interest.

While Rauschenberg is known as a brilliant colorist, this lightbox explores the artist’s periodic retreat to low- or no-color artworks throughout his career.
White Painting
Erased de Kooning Drawing
Untitled
Open Season
Baton Blanche (Cardboard)
Sant'Agnese (Venetian)
Egyptian Series 5
Page 2 (Pages)
Untitled (Pyramid Series)
Glacier (Hoarfrost)
Vow (Jammer)
Niagara Summer Glut
Time Scan (Phantom)
In this lightbox, Jonas Albro, Eliana Blechman, and Kevin Geraghty explore Rauschenberg's Hoarfrosts (1974–76), a series of artworks comprised predominantly of unstretched fabric featuring images and texts transferred from magazines and newsprint through a solvent process.
Untitled (Hoarfrost)
Untitled (Hoarfrost)
Brew (Hoarfrost)
photograph from above of figures around a table with colorful magazines spread out on fabric

Robert Rauschenberg proofing the Hoarfrost Editions, assisted by Gemini G.E.L. printers. Los Angeles, CA, 1974. Photograph © 1974 Sidney B. Felsen.

Canto XXXIII: Circle Nine, Cocytus, Compound Fraud: Round 2, Antenora, Treacherous to Country; Round 3, Ptolomea, Treacherous to Guests and Hosts, from the series Thirty-Four Illustrations for Dante’s Inferno
Pull (Hoarfrost Edition)
Scent (Hoarfrost Edition)
Plus Fours (Hoarfrost Edition)
Preview (Hoarfrost Edition)
Emerald (Hoarfrost)
Gush (Hoarfrost)
Glacier (Hoarfrost)
Untitled (Hoarfrost)
Cardbird VI
Plain Salt (Cardboard)
Cat Paws (Airport Suite)
Mirage (Jammer)
This is a re-creation of Rauschenberg's first solo exhibition at the Betty Parsons Gallery, New York, May 14 - June 2, 1951.
22 The Lily White
Mother of God
Crucifixion and Reflection
Untitled
Eden
Trinity
Stone, Stone, Stone
Should Love Come First?
This lightbox presents posters made for a variety of purposes over the course of Rauschenberg’s career: from those designed to advertise his own exhibitions and the work of his collaborators, to promotional pieces for the many social and political causes he supported.
Poster for Robert Rauschenberg, the Jewish Museum
Poster for CORE (Congress of Racial Equality)
Untitled [self-portrait for Dwan poster]
Poster for 9 Evenings: Theatre & Engineering
Earth Day
Poster for Dayton's Gallery 12
Poster for Jammers Exhibition, Leo Castelli Gallery
Poster for Rauschenberg Retrospective, National Collection of Fine Arts
Poster for WOZA Afrika
Last Turn–Your Turn [print for Earth Summit '92 the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil]
Poster for ROCI USSR
Poster for Habitat II
Poster for Guggenheim Retrospective
In this lightbox, the Red Paintings (1953–54) explore the combination of paint, collage, and found objects that anticipate the three-dimensionality of Rauschenberg’s celebrated Combines begun shortly thereafter.
Untitled (Red Painting)
Untitled (Red Painting)
Red Painting
Red Interior
Red Import
Untitled
Yoicks
Collection
Untitled
Charlene
Minutiae
Bantam
Untitled
Untitled
Tethering wall and floor elements was a recurrent device used by Rauschenberg to blur and transcend the distinction between painting and sculpture.
Nettle
Black Market
Blue Eagle
Magician II
Slug
1/2 Gals. / AAPCO (Cardboard)
Glass / Channel / Via Panama (Cardboard)
Franciscan II (Venetian)
San Pantalone (Venetian)
Trowel (Jammer)
Gooey Duck Late Summer Glut
Rauschenberg’s transfer drawings combine imagery excerpted from printed mass media with hand drawn and painted passages to create pictorial poems.
Untitled (Mirror)
Cup
Complete Relaxation
Hallucination
Untitled
Same Day Service
Olympia
Rauschenberg’s encounters and collaborations with other artists at Black Mountain were critical to the development of his artistic sensibility.
White Painting
Untitled [small vertical black painting]
Untitled (Night Blooming)
Rauschenberg and Susan Weil
This Is the First Half of a Print Designed to Exist in Passing Time
Quiet House–Black Mountain
Unicorn costume
Postcard Self-Portrait, Black Mountain (II)
Postcard Self-Portrait, Black Mountain (I)
Untitled [John Cage, Black Mountain]
Untitled [portrait with four-panel White Painting, Black Mountain]
Rauschenberg at Black Mountain
Statement on Josef Albers
Rauschenberg’s dedication to art and technology crossover
Money Thrower for Tinguely's H.T.N.Y.
Broadway studio
Oracle
9 Evenings technical rehearsal
Poster for 9 Evenings: Theatre & Engineering
Open Score, 9 Evenings: Theatre & Engineering
9 Evenings: Theatre & Engineering program
E.A.T. booklet, with Rauschenberg’s edits
Open Score notes
Open Score notes
Soundings
Radios, Oracle, Soundings, Teledyne statement
Mud Muse
Oracle
Oracle
Rauschenberg’s earliest explorations of avant-garde dance and performance
Robert Rauschenberg: Performance 1954-1995 excerpts
Linoleum
Open Score, 9 Evenings: Theatre & Engineering
Pelican notes
Spring Training supply list
Open Score notes
Pelican
Linoleum
Open Score rackets
Spring Training
Linoleum
Map Room II
Trisha Brown and Rauschenberg's life-long friendship and performance collaborations.
Set and Reset excerpt
Foray Forêt excerpt
Astral Convertible excerpt
If you couldn’t see me excerpt
Glacial Decoy
Set and Reset costumes
Set and Reset set
Lateral Pass
Astral Convertible
If you couldn’t see me contact sheet
Statement on Trisha Brown
Letter of recommendation for Trisha Brown and Laurie Anderson (Set and Reset)
Letter from Trisha Brown
Glacial Decoy Series: Etching IV
Untitled (Salvage)
Chrome Castle Glut (Neapolitan)
Rauschenberg’s collaborative relationship with choreographer Merce Cunningham
Minutiae excerpt, Event for Television
Antic Meet
Travelogue excerpt, South Bank Show
Robert Rauschenberg: The Art of Performance
Merce Cunningham documentary
Antic Meet
Aeon machine
Cunningham world tour
Interscape
Statement for Cunningham book
Minutiae
Story