John from Ruminations
Robert Rauschenberg
American, 1925–2008
1999
A photolithograph in which Robert Rauschenberg blends photographic fragments with expressive ink washes to fuse found imagery and chance gestures into a single, memory-like composition.
At first glance it feels like a dark inkblot that slowly resolves into layered fragments—a vintage automobile grille, a seated figure by a window, and a standing person—so your eye drifts between crisp photographic detail and smeared, accidental marks.
By combining photographic reproduction with painterly accident, Rauschenberg extends his long inquiry into collage and the readymade, showing how mechanical and gestural processes can be woven together to rethink memory, narrative, and the picture’s surface.
Medium
Photolithograph
Dimensions
composition (irreg.): 25 3/16 x 33 7/8" (64 x 86 cm); sheet: 29 1/2 x 38 13/16" (75 x 98.6 cm)
Classification
Department
Credit
Gift of Emily Fisher Landau
Accession
1362.2000
Palette
Exhibitions
