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Shirtboard, Morocco, Italy '52

Maker Robert Rauschenberg (American, 1925 - 2008)

ClassificationsPRINTS

Date1991

Mediumink and paper

Dimensions15 1/2 x 11 1/4 in. (39.4 x 28.6 cm.)

SignedSigned and dated along the lower edge of recto in graphite: Rauschenberg 39/65 91

InscribedSigned and dated along the lower edge of recto in graphite: Rauschenberg 39/65 91

Credit LineThe Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens. Gift of Dean Hansell

Status

Not on view

Label TextIn 1952, Robert Rauschenberg toured Europe and Morroco where he made collages by mounting objects he found on his travels to cardboard sheets he received with his laundered shirts. Rauschenberg commissioned Styria Studios in New York to make replicas of the collages in 1991. The new versions are identical to the originals, down to the placement of stray glue marks, except that they are slightly larger. During his career, Rauschenberg played with the notion of originality in art by copying his own work.
Rauschenberg's use of everyday objects and estoteric symbolism is evocative of collages by Joseph Cornell.
However, Cornell's collages are carefully assembled both physically and in terms of meaning, whereas Rauschenberg's hasty, expressive construction technique and ephemeral materials foreshadow his Combines, large assemblages of detritus he found in New York, painted and adorned with photographs, newspaper articles, or other visual material.

Object number2009.13.10