
Robert Rauschenberg designing a unicorn costume for his sister Janet for a Mardi Gras celebration, modeled by fellow student Inga (Ingeborg) Lauterstein at Black Mountain College, North Carolina, ca. 1949. Photograph Collection. Robert Rauschenberg Foundation Archives, New York. Photo: Trude Guermonprez
A Passion for Fashion: 100 Years of Rauschenberg's Fabric Artworks and Costume Designs
Robert Rauschenberg’s path into fine art started not in a studio, but on the stage. As a teenager in Port Arthur, Texas, he sketched and sewed costumes for school plays. Just a few years later, on the GI Bill, he enrolled as a fashion major at the Kansas City Art Institute.

Rauschenberg with Jasper Johns, John Cage, Louis Stevenson, and Bob Cato in Rauschenberg’s or Johns’s Pearl Street studio, New York, ca. 1956. Photo: Jerry Schatzberg
Open Call: 2026 Archives Research Residency
The Robert Rauschenberg Foundation is pleased to announce an open call for applications to the sixth annual Archives Research Residency, a one- to three-week research intensive at the Rauschenberg Foundation Archives in New York City.

John M. Marshall Elementary School Workshop with artist Scott Bluedorn, 2025. Photo: Kayla Matters
It’s Back-to-School Time: Let These Students Teach you About Rauschenberg
Something special is happening on the East End of Long Island, thanks to a grant from the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation to Guild Hall in East Hampton in honor of the artist’s Centennial year.

Rauschenberg and Terry Van Brunt viewing a NASA space shuttle launch at Cape Canaveral, circa 1983
All engines running. Liftoff!
An interview with NASA’s Lois Rosson on the launch of Apollo 11, NASA’s Artists Cooperation Program, and Robert Rauschenberg’s time at Cape Canaveral.

Robert Rauschenberg working on Oracle (1962-65) in his Broadway studio, New York, 1960s. Photo: Unattributed
Crank Up The Volume -- 100 Years of Rauschenberg's Sonic Legacy

Kate Reibel, photo: Mara Lavitt; Carol T. Finley, courtesy Carol T. Finley; Sharon Kim, photo: Weston Wells.
The Robert Rauschenberg Foundation Announces New Leadership Appointments
The Robert Rauschenberg Foundation is pleased to announce the appointment of Carol T. Finley to its Board of Directors. Sharon Kim has also been named Chief Collection Officer, and Kate Reibel joins as Director of Communications and Strategic Initiatives, both effective June 2, 2025.

Mercury Zero Summer Glut, 1987
Gladstone debuts an exhibition of over 30 rarely seen sculptures by Robert Rauschenberg
Presented in collaboration with the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation on the occasion of the artist’s Centennial, Gladstone is mounting the first survey of Rauschenberg’s sculptural practice in thirty years, spanning his production from the 1950s through the late 1990s.