6 Artists To Follow If You Like Robert Rauschenberg Exploring Rauschenberg's legacy . (This link opens in a new tab).
By Richard Pound
Robert Rauschenberg, born 100 years ago this year, was one of the 20th century’s most influential artists who, over the course of a 60-year career, left his distinctive mark on many different media, including painting, sculpture, printmaking, photography, and performance. Not only an important precursor of Pop Art, he has been described as “a forerunner of essentially every post-war movement since Abstract Expressionism.”
Rauschenberg is best known for his “Combines” (1954–64), which incorporated elements of both painting and sculpture into a single work. These pivotal experiments, made using mundane found objects such as newspaper clippings, photographs, bedspreads, cardboard, fabric, and rubber tires, are some of the finest artworks ever to explore the boundaries between art, popular culture, and the everyday world.
In 2025, several major exhibitions will explore different aspects of his legacy. For example, Hong Kong’s M+ Museum will take a comprehensive look at Rauschenberg’s longstanding engagement with Asian culture, while his collaborations with fellow artists will be examined in “Five Friends: John Cage, Merce Cunningham, Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg, Cy Twombly” at the Museum Brandhost in Munich. Finally, solo shows at Gladstone Gallery in New York and Thaddaeus Ropac in Paris will pay homage to his enduring importance (in May and October, respectively). Meanwhile, the 2025 edition of miart, Milan’s international art fair, will adopt his life and works as its curatorial theme.
Also a philanthropist and passionate advocate for social and political change, Rauschenberg established the Rauschenberg Foundation in 1990 to support artists and institutions who share his inclusive, collaborative, and multidisciplinary approach.
And his influence continues to be felt today. As Julia Blaut, the Rauschenberg Foundation’s senior director of curatorial affairs, pointed out, “In so many instances, artists today acknowledge his precedence, have run with his example, and have extended his ideas in completely original and unexpected directions.…He always was and remains an artist’s artist.”
