Robert Rauschenberg began life in 1925 in Port Arthur, Texas.  In retrospect, it seems from that point on it has been his self-appointed mission to bridge what he calls the "gap between art and life"; a goal not so distant from that of his Christian fundamentalist upbringing.  Collectively, his works represent a life time's testimony of the day-to-day experience in modern cities and culture. In fact, Rauschenberg was the defining factor that swayed contemporary modern art away from Abstract Expressionism towards Pop Art.

Rauschenberg began making assemblage and multimedia works that he is best known for in the mid '50s after he spent a tumultuous period of searching for direction in his life.  Beginning in 1942, Rauschenberg enrolled in pharmaceutical studies at the University of Texas and soon after was drafted and later discharged from the U. S. Marines.  From 1947 to 1948 he spent studying music, sculpture, and art history at the Kansas City Art Institute.  The following year Rauschenberg attended the Academie Julian in Paris, where he met his future wife.  When he returned to the U. S. he began to study under Joseph Albers at the reputable Blacks Mountain College in North Carolina.

Rauschenberg moved to New York in 1949 to begin his career.  He worked on window displays for Bonwit Teller and Tiffany, had his first one-man exhibition in 1951, returned to Blacks Mountain College for a brief period and from there escaped to Europe.  All of his experiences with the arts: the thriving cities and cultural centers of Europe, a deep connection with music and dance, his formal artistic training, would serve as inspiration for his works as well as carry prolonged effect on the quality and development of the artist's life in art.

Rauschenberg has been referred to as the Father of Pop Art.  His appropriation of images from magazines and newspapers, the feeling of domestic interior design, and the segments of paint in an abstract style mark him as a pivotal figure in art history.  His subject matter often focuses on modern urban city-life, revealing his preoccupation with the affects of modernization like most artists of the 20th century, including Dadaist Marcel Duchamp.

The union of 2-D imagery and 3-D objects incorporating the spontaneity of Action Painting, display his deep-rooted love for dance and music as well his connection to Dada and his foreshadowing of Pop Art. Pop Art formed as a reaction to and as a way of making fun of the mass-cultural environment that it depicted and whose existence permitted such an art form to flourish.  Rauschenberg was heavily influenced by the mischievous art of Dada.  His friendship with Marcel Duchamp affected Rauschenberg's approach to his combine paintings by adding compositional confusion, the paradox and oxymoron, the clever satire and irony, of a Dada collage.  Both Pop Art and Dada are alike in their attempts to make fun of modern life, thus connecting them to Rauschenberg.

As recent as January 1998, the Guggenheim Museum launched an impressive retrospective covering his career of more than 50 years pushing him into the forefront of the minds of collectors, historians, and the general public at large all over the world.  The Guggenheim in fact re-affirms Rauschenberg's success.  He more than accomplished his goal: to act in the gap between art and life.

The following was written and submitted by Jean Ershler Schatz, artist and researcher from Laguna Woods, California:

Robert Rauschenberg was born in Port Arthur, Texas of German and Cherokee Indian heritage. He was given the name of Milton and he changed it to Robert when he became a young man.  In 1942 he enrolled in pharmaceutical studies at the University of Texas and soon after was drafted and later discharged from the U.S. Marines.

A talent for sketching along with a friendship with a girl named Pat Pearman, led him to enroll in the Kansas City Art Institute where he studied music, sculpture and art history.  It was all so new to him and so exciting that he took every class he could and literally ran from class to class.  The following year he went on to Paris where he studied at the Academie Julian under the GI Bill.  In Paris, he met Susan Weil, an artist who led him in 1948 to study with Josef Albers at North Carolina's Black Mountain College.  He had never even heard of Albers who turned out to provide him with the discipline he needed but also was cruel and very intimidating.  This period was followed by several years' attendance at the Art Students League in New York City with Morris Kantor and Vaclav Vytlacil.

In 1950 Rauschenberg and Weil were married; they had one son and were divorced in 1952.  In 1952 he met Jasper Johns and for the next five years the two artists were inseparable.  They worked together on window displays for Bonwit Teller and Tiffany.  He had met the composer John Cage and dance choreographer Merce Cunningham at Black Mountain College and he worked with them as a designer, manager and performer.  He also made designs for Paul Taylor's dance company.

Sources include:
Time Magazine, September 18, 1964
Extra Sensory Perception by Kristine McKenna in Los Angeles Times Calendar Section, Sunday,
November 24, 1996
From the Internet