MOST DISTANT VISIBLE PART OF THE SEA

ROBERT RAUSCHENBERGMOST DISTANT VISIBLE PART OF THE SEA30.5 X 23 inchesPP EDITION OF 6COLOR SILKSCREEN AND COLLAGERauschenberg’s enthusiasm for popular culture and his rejection of the angst and seriousness of the Abstract Expressionists led him to search for a new way of painting. He found his signature mode by embracing materials traditionally outside of the artist’s reach. He would cover a canvas with house paint, or ink the wheel of a car and run it over paper to create a drawing, while demonstrating rigor and concern for formal painting. By 1958, at the time of his first solo exhibition at the Leo Castelli Gallery, his work had moved from abstract painting to drawings like “Erased De Kooning” (1953) (which was exactly as it sounds) to what he termed “combines.” These combines (meant to express both the finding and forming of combinations in three-dimensional collage) cemented his place in art history. One of Rauschenberg’s first and most famous combines was entitled “Monogram”