Robert Rauschenberg
b. Port Arthur, Texas, 1925–2008
Fossil for Bob Morris
1965
Paper, metal, plastic, rubber, and fabric on canvas
84 × 60 × 9 in. (213.4 × 152.4 × 22.9 cm) (variable)
Gift of Joseph H. Hirshhorn, 1972 (72.240)
© 2021 Robert Rauschenberg Foundation / Licensed by VAGA at Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY. Photo: Tex Andrews
This work was conserved with support from the Bank of America Art Conservation Project

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“Painting playing the game of sculpture.” That is how artist Jasper Johns in 1954 described Robert Rauschenberg’s groundbreaking artworks, which not only brought together two- and three-dimensional elements, but also insisted that painting coexist with objects scavenged from everyday life. Combines (as Rauschenberg called them) built upon Duchamp’s readymades but expanded them to a much larger scale, one that confronts the viewer with a dizzying, seemingly unrelated mashup of whole and fragmented objects, text, photomechanical reproductions, and painted gestures.

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KIDS at Home: Combine Design project

Focus on Conservation: Uncovering Robert Rauschenberg’s Fossil for Bob Morris, 1965