Robert Rauschenberg, born Milton Rauschenberg, was born on October 22, 1925 to Dora and Ernest Rauschenberg in the town of Port Arthur, Texas. Growing up in the 1930’s, Rauschenberg’s adult life, like so many other young men of the time period, began with the onset of World War Two. Rauschenberg was drafted into the U.S. Navy in 1943. In the Navy, Robert served as a neuropsychiatric technician on the U.S. Naval Hospital in San Diego, California. Fortunately for him, this assignment kept him from seeing any combat and enabled him to make it through the war intact.
Upon war’s end in 1945, Robert studied art in Paris but quickly moved back to the U.S. to study art at Black Mountain College in North Carolina. While attending college here intermittently …show more content…
While studying here Robert became close with Cy Twombly, and the pair traveled both Europe and North Africa together from the fall of 1952 till the spring of 1953. While on these travels, Rauschenberg began his use of collages and assemblages in his art repertoire, and exhibited his pieces in both Florence and Rome, Italy.
Upon returning home to New York in 1953, Rauschenberg began experimenting with the use of newspaper as a paper on which to paint over, and completed the series “Black Paintings” using this technique. Rauschenberg also began using various objects and bits of daily life during this period to create intricate assemblages and collages.
Best known for his collages and innovative use of various materials, Rauschenberg combined not only materials but techniques and styles. Rauschenberg often used traditional and fundamental artistic mediums in new and innovative ways to create his own style of art. A wonderful example of this was Rauschenberg’s compelling use of the silkscreening process. Using the silkscreening process, Rauschenberg was able to copy images and pictures multiple times on canvas. This use of silkscreening and the artwork Rauschenberg produced during this period of his career (circa 1962) places him in the company of American Pop Art forerunners such as Andy