Robert Rauschenberg's New York: Pictures from the Real World

Robert Rauschenberg (1925-2008) was the quintessential artist of post-war New York and one of the most influential creators of twentieth-century America, best known as a painter and graphic artist who paved the way for Pop Art. Robert Rauschenberg's New York takes a deep dive into the artist's engagement with photographs, focusing on his relationship with the city of New York. Seminal early photographs set the stage for the volume, examining the artist's early life and career, and the New York arts scene of the 1950s and early 1960s. Later, the career-defining photographs made by Rauschenberg in New York City between 1979 and 1981 are presented alongside a carefully chosen selection of his paintings and prints that reproduce and repurpose the photographs in new ways. Here, his photographic imagery is seen in a new context, as source material for further artistic creativity and improvisation.