PURCHASE, NY.- "Robert Rauschenberg from the Permanent Collection," on view at the Neuberger Museum of Art through April 17, 2005, is an exhibition drawn from the Neuberger Museum�s large holdings of prints by an artist who has had a significant impact on 20th art since the 1950s. Shown together for the first time as part of the Neuberger Museum�s 30th anniversary celebration, the lithographs, silkscreens and collages in this exhibition give audiences a glimpse into the work of an artist whose practices foreshadowed the advent of the postmodern era in contemporary art on which he has had a profound and lasting effect.

Highlighting the exhibition is a portfolio of lithographs based on drawings that are among the artist�s most memorable works. The original drawings for Rauschenberg XXXIV Drawings for Dante�s Inferno Canto I � Canto XXXIV were created in 1959-60 and published in 1964 as an offset lithograph portfolio with a text written by art critic/historian Dore Ashton. The imagery of these atmospheric works reflects Dante�s complex, circular allegory and signals Rauschenberg�s growing fascination with two-dimensional work and printmaking, which began in 1960 along with the emergency of Pop Art.

�Rauschenberg�s agile movement from sculpture and paintings to printmaking fostered the experimental methods through which he could make comments on contemporary culture, mining those images that helped to create the culture,� says Dede Young, Neuberger Museum of Art Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art, who organized the exhibition. �His genius for innovation did not cause a complete break from established tenets, but rather allowed him to embody and push beyond them. Working collaboratively with artists across creative endeavors � musicians, costume designers and dancers as well as other visual artists � Rauschenberg engaged in highly productive interactions in may new situations. In these environments, he seized opportunities to use new materials and to work rapidly. His collaboration with printmakers at a variety of ateliers led to the use of Plexiglas and mirror as surfaces on which to print the image,� notes Young.

The large portfolios of Features and Surface Series from Currents comprise the principal part of the collection. Currents was the largest silkscreen ever made at the time, extending 54 feet from beginning to end. Features, which includes 25 silkscreens printed from multiple screens in black and various single colors and Surface Series, which includes 18 silkscreens printed from three screens are the two related sets of smaller prints published at that time. They reflect contemporary life as reported in journals and newspapers across the nation. News headlines in January and February 1970 reported terrorism, war, racism, sports, and environmental and urban decay. Literally ripping works from print media, Rauschenberg freely transferred the information to create collages that he then made into photo-silkscreen prints. He recombined the fragments rapidly, creating powerful abstract compositions with layers and marks that seem to reveal and obscure meaning at the same time. He did not consciously alter the original meaning of the source materials, as his intention was to confront the viewer with complex and compelling realities of our world.

Robert Rauschenberg born in Port Arthur, Texas in 1925, had an aptitude for drawing from an early age. In 1947, while in the U.S. Marines, his interest in the artistic representation of everyday objects and people was furthered as he drew portraits of enlisted men to send home to their families. After studying briefly in Paris, he moved to North Carolina, where he met visionary artists and thinkers, such as Joseph Albers, Buckminster Fuller, John Cage and Merce Cunningham who were teaching at Black Mountain College near Asheville.

In 1953, Rauschenberg moved to New York where he established his studio. In 1963, The Jewish Museum, NY, organized his first career retrospective. Rauschenberg was the recipient of the Grand Prize for Painting at the 1964 Venice Biennale. In 1970, Rauschenberg established a permanent residence and studio in Captiva, Florida, where he still lives. The National Collection of Fine Arts, Washington, DC organized a retrospective of his work that traveled throughout the United States in 1976�78. In 1997, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, NY, exhibited the largest retrospective of Rauschenberg�s work to date, which traveled to Houston and to Europe in 1998.

The exhibition is curated by Dede Young, Neuberger Museum of Art Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art, with Avis Larson, Curatorial Assistant.