Sidney and Lois Eskenazi Museum of Art

About this Work

In the mid-1950s, Robert Rauschenberg created an innovative series of mixed-media assemblages called “combines.” In 1962, he developed a transfer technique that allowed him to adapt this approach to works on paper. Rauschenberg’s prints incorporate snippets from printed sources—mostly from popular magazines and art reproductions—with hand-drawn gestural marks. Like a Beat poet or jazz musician, Rauschenberg riffed on familiar motifs (Statue of Liberty, odalisque, eye chart, keys, statue of George Washington, and a glass of water). His spontaneous approach—even incorporating a chance break in the stone—and use of recognizable subject matter makes his work an important link between Abstract Expressionism and Pop art.