In his late work, Rauschenberg continued to approach his art with the spirit of invention and to seek out new materials and technologies. Beginning in 1992, he used an Iris printer to make digital color prints of his photographs. This technology allowed for the high-resolution images and luminous hues of two series of large-scale works on paper, Waterworks (1992–95) and Anagrams (1995–97). In 1996, Rauschenberg transferred the Iris prints to wet plaster in the Arcadian Retreats (a fresco series that provided him with an entirely new avenue of exploration) and to polylaminate panels in his last three bodies of work, Short Stories (2000–2002), Scenarios (2002–6), and, finally, Runts (2006–8).

Despite his use of new materials and methods, much of Rauschenberg’s later work looks back at his earlier art and is autobiographical in nature. With the retrospective exhibition organized by the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, in 1997, which traveled to venues in the United States and Europe, the artist had the opportunity to view the full scope of what had been, at that point, a fifty-year career. During that same year, Rauschenberg created glass sculptures of some of his iconic subjects: a tire, a pillow, a shovel, and a broom, each dignified by a silver-plated platform. His monumental Mirthday Man (1997), from the Anagram (A Pun) series, was made on the occasion of his seventy-second birthday and includes a reproduction of the life-size X-ray of the artist that he first used in the print Booster (1967), while the imagery in the editioned Ruminations series (2000) refers to important moments and figures in the artist’s life.

Following a stroke in 2002 that left his right hand partially paralyzed, the artist continued to work, undeterred, but now with his left hand. During this final decade, he continued his collaborations with performers and printmakers and his commitment to humanitarian causes.