100 Years On, Robert Rauschenberg and Joan Mitchell Still Hold Sway Celebrating Centennials

By Hilarie M. Sheets

Two groundbreaking artists of the 20th century — Robert Rauschenberg and Joan Mitchell — were born 100 years ago this year.

Mitchell, one of the few women among the early Abstract Expressionist painters and a remarkable colorist, lived and worked in New York in the 1950s.

Rauschenberg, too, was in New York then when he began the pioneering series of artworks he called “Combines.” In these pieces, he conjoined painted canvases with physical objects, such as a taxidermied goat, a rubber tire or even, in a piece called “Bed,” his own quilt and pillow.

Yet Mitchell and Rauschenberg aren’t typically discussed in tandem.

“They weren’t in the same circles in life,” said Courtney J. Martin, executive director of the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation [...]

“I always point to the Mitchell Foundation as probably our best mate,” said Martin, who joined Blatchford at the Mitchell Foundation’s New York offices with a reporter last month to discuss the field of artist-endowed foundations, opportunities presented by Rauschenberg’s and Mitchell’s centennials, and the ways that the foundations are working to keep their artists’ legacies alive.