Rebus belongs to a body of work in which Rauschenberg integrated three-dimensional objects with two-dimensional paintings. His friend Jasper Johns coined the term Combine for such works, describing them as “painting playing the game of sculpture.” Made from layers of everyday materials found in the neighborhood of his Lower Manhattan studio (comic strips, political posters, fabric, and drawings), this work maintains a flatter, sparser surface than most of the artist’s Combines.

Gallery label from

2011.

Gallery label from 2020.

Rauschenberg described Rebus as “a record of the immediate environment and time.” A collection of words and images, it constitutes a kind of unsolvable puzzle. The materials, found in the neighborhood around his studio, include comic strips, fabric remnants, a museum poster, and a drawing by his friend the artist Cy Twombly. The work functions as both portrait and landscape, recording the artist’s creative impulses at the moment of its making, while also using materials drawn from mass media.

Medium Oil, alkyd paint, pencil, crayon, pastel, cut-and-pasted printed and painted papers, and fabric on canvas mounted and stapled to fabric, three panels
Dimensions 8' x 10' 11 1/8" (243.8 x 333.1 cm)
Credit Partial and promised gift of Jo Carole and Ronald S. Lauder and bequest of Virginia C. Field, gift of Mr. and Mrs. Peter A. Rübel, and gift of Jay R. Braus (all by exchange)
Object number 243.2005.a-c
Department Painting & Sculpture

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Robert Rauschenberg

Robert Rauschenberg

American, 1925–2008 380 works online

Robert Rauschenberg worked in a wide range of mediums including painting, sculpture, prints, photography, and performance, over the span of six decades.

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