Robert Rauschenberg was born in 1925 in Port Arthur, Texas. In retrospect, it seems from that point on, it was his self-appointed mission to bridge what he calls the "gap between art and life"; a goal not so distant from that of his Christian fundamentalist upbringing. Collectively, his works represent a life time's testimony of the day-to-day experience in modern cities and culture. In fact, Rauschenberg was the defining factor that swayed contemporary modern art away from Abstract Expressionism towards Pop Art.
Rauschenberg began making the assemblage and multimedia works that he is best known for in the mid 1950s after a tumultuous period of searching for direction in his life. Beginning in 1942, Rauschenberg enrolled in pharmaceutical studies at the University of Texas and was soon drafted and later discharged from the U.S. Marine Corps. From 1947 to 1948 he studied music, sculpture, and art history at the Kansas City Art Institute. The following year Rauschenberg attended the Academie Julian in Paris, where he met his future wife. Upon returning to the United States he began to study under Joseph Albers at the reputable Black Mountain College in North Carolina.
Rauschenberg moved to New York in 1949 to begin his career. He worked on window displays for Bonwit Teller and Tiffany & Co., had his first one-man exhibition in 1951, returned to Black Mountain College for a brief period and from there escaped to Europe. All of his experiences with the arts: the thriving cities and cultural centers of Europe, a deep connection with music and dance, his formal artistic training, would serve as inspiration for his works as well as carry prolonged effect on the quality and development of the artist's life in art.
Rauschenberg has been referred to as the Father of Pop Art. His appropriation of images from magazines and newspapers, the feeling of domestic interior design, and the segments of paint in an abstract style mark him as a pivotal figure in art history. His subject matter often focuses on modern urban city-life, revealing his preoccupation with the affects of modernization like most artists of the 20th century, including Dadaist Marcel Duchamp.
The union of 2-D imagery, 3-D objects, and incorporating the spontaneity of Action Painting, display his deep-rooted love for dance and music as well his connection to Dada and his foreshadowing of Pop Art. Pop Art was as a reaction to and a way of making fun of the mass-cultural environment that it depicted and whose existence permitted such an art form to flourish. Rauschenberg was heavily influenced by the mischievous art of Dada. His friendship with Marcel Duchamp affected Rauschenberg's approach to his combine paintings by adding compositional confusion, the paradox and oxymoron, the clever satire and irony, of a Dada collage. Both Pop Art and Dada are alike in their attempts to make fun of modern life, thus connecting them to Rauschenberg.
As recent as January 1998, the Guggenheim Museum launched an impressive retrospective covering his career of more than 50 years. This exhibition pushed the artist to the forefront of the minds of collectors, historians, and the general public throughout the world, reaffirming Rauschenberg's success. He has more than accomplished his goal: to act in the gap between art and life.