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拍品专文
A meticulous study in restrained elegance, Robert Rauschenberg’s Levee is one of the earliest and most influential of the artist’s lauded Combines. Drawing upon the everyday materials available to him in his downtown New York studio, the thirty-year-old artist pioneered a bold new vision for art with his hybrid creations. Absorbing both the painterliness of the preceding Abstract Expressionist generation and the collage technique and formal structures of Cubism, Rauschenberg created an innovative new artform attaining the qualities of both painting and sculpture. Created in 1955, a seminal year for the artist and the broader New York art scene, Levee inaugurates several of Rauschenberg’s most enduring motifs—that of the necktie, the appropriation of Old Master works, and his fascination with the circular form. Works such as Levee proved a radical break with tradition and from Rauschenberg’s contemporaries, precipitating a great shift in American contemporary art. While rejecting artistic orthodoxy, Rauschenberg achieves with Levee a poetic sense of beauty. “On the New York art scene the great shift came in Rauschenberg’s early work,” the art historian and critic Leo Steinberg writes in his groundbreaking study of the artist’s early Combines. “Even as Abstract Expressionism was celebrating its triumphs, he proposed the flatbed or work-surface picture plane as the foundation of an artistic language that would deal with a different order of experience” (“Encounters with Rauschenberg” in S. Schwartz, ed., Modern Art, Chicago, 2023, p. 91).
Built of interweaving layers of paper, newspaper, and fabric, Levee shows Rauschenberg at his most meditative and erudite. His careful juxtaposition of found materials and imagery constructs obscure iconographies which suggest autobiographical allusions, yet resist complete comprehension. Pasted onto the surface of the Combine is a reproduction of Lucas Cranach the Younger’s drawing of Princess Elizabeth of Saxony. Unlike his forebear Joseph Cornell, Rauschenberg did not draw symbolic or thematic resonances from his appropriated Old Masters, instead focusing on their formal reverberations. In this case, the exaggerated roundness of the princess’s forehead parallels the circularity of the salvaged truck tachograph pasted above. In the same horizontal frieze, Rauschenberg incorporates a patterned fabric square, a rectangular canvas landscape scene, and a further rectangular void, created by carefully slashing the canvas—in a technique anticipatory of Lucio Fontana’s iconic Tagli—to reveal the darkness below. Rauschenberg’s most innovative inclusion here is the cream necktie, seemingly attached to the composition with a dripping splash of bright yellow paint. This was the first tie to appear in Rauschenberg’s Combines, and would become an enduring motif throughout his practice. As a final step, the artist applied smatterings and lines of paint over and across the work in a technique aping the Abstract Expressionists. The effect was to insist upon the real materiality of his media, rejecting any notion of pictorial illusion or invented space. “Rauschenberg’s imagery needed bedrock as hard and tolerant as a work bench,” Steinberg describes. “If some collage element, such as a pasted-down photograph, threatened to evoke a topical illusion of depth, the surface was casually stained or smeared with paint to recall its irreducible flatness. The ‘integrity of the picture plane’—once the accomplishment of good design—was to become that which is given” (ibid., pp. 92-94).
Pondering Levee, Steinberg notes the importance of “the necktie in Rauschenberg iconography” (ibid., p. 198). Levee marks the first appearance of the motif, which later reappears in some of Rauschenberg’s most important works. The first state of his famed Monogram (1955-1959, Moderna Museet, Stockholm), conceived contemporaneously with the present work, also includes a tie. Rauschenberg later reworked the back element of Monogram into Rhyme (1956, The Museum of Modern Art, New York) and Summerstorm (1959, Private collection, Los Angeles), both of which recapitulate the necktie. Of the approximately eleven Combines which include neckties, all but three reside in museum collections, underscoring the critical importance of the motif to the artist’s oeuvre. When asked about the significance of neckties in his work in a 2006 interview, Rauschenberg relayed: “It always come to that climax of how things are held together" (quoted in “Robert Rauschenberg and Calvin Tomkins: A Conversation about Art and Life,” The Metropolitan Museum of Art, YouTube, 5 February 2006, online).
1955 was Rauschenberg’s annus mirabilis, when he “established the methodology and philosophy that he would mine for the next four decades” as the art historian Sam Hunter writes (Robert Rauschenberg, New York, 1999, p. 83). From the previous December into January, Rauschenberg held his first solo show at Egan Gallery, facilitated by his friend and fellow artist, Jack Tworkov. This show, a “particularly important milestone in the artist’s career,” revealed to the New York public his new emerging style which he would further refine through the remainder of the year (B.W. Joseph, “‘Disparate Visual Facts': Early Combines” in Robert Rauschenberg, exh. cat., The Museum of Modern Art, New York, 2016, p. 139). Reviewing the show, Frank O’Hara wrote, “Bob Rauschenberg, enfant terrible of the New York School, is back again to even more brilliant effect… For all the baroque exuberance of the show, quieter pictures evidence a serious lyrical talent” (“Reviews and Previews: Bob Rauschenberg" in Artnews, 53, no. 9, January 1955, p. 47).
Levee, made following O’Hara’s enthusiastic review, perfectly articulates Rauschenberg’s “lyrical talent.” His move to Pearl Street, where his new studio was right above Jasper Johns’s loft, immersed him in the distinct downtown scene. Rauschenberg and Johns, together with the avant-garde composer John Cage and his partner, the choreographer Merce Cunningham, sought to break out from the overwhelming influence of the Abstract Expressionists, still predominant in the city’s art scene. “New York is a maze of unorganized experiences peopled by the unexpected—change is unavoidable,” the artist described of his new home, which informed his Combines (quoted in L. Alloway, “Rauschenberg’s Development” in Robert Rauschenberg, exh. cat., National Collection of Fine Arts, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., 1976, p. 11). The bits of urban detritus scattered around the environs of Rauschenberg’s new studio provided the material for his new series of Combines. The artist’s new environment and close circle of peers provided the inspiration for his radical break with artistic tradition, as demonstrated by Levee and Bed, his iconic Combine made from his own bed and now in the collection of The Museum of Modern Art. Paralleling Bed, Rauschenberg makes notable use of bed linens in the present work. “At a time when the primacy of New York School painting remained relatively unchallenged,” the curator Paul Schimmel notes, “the Combines paved the way for a new direction in art, one that was subsequently explored by a wide range of artists” (“Autobiography and Self-Portraiture in Rauschenberg’s Combines” in Robert Rauschenberg: Combines, exh. cat., Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, 2011, p. 211).
Rauschenberg’s inclusion of a reproduction of a Lucas Cranach drawing is one of the first appearances of an Old Master in his work, a subject which would continually reappear throughout his oeuvre. This inclusion both recalls the Surrealist and Dada traditions from which the Combines emerge, with artists including Marcel Duchamp, Joseph Cornell, and Kurt Schwitters incorporating Italian Renaissance works into their collage practices. On a formative monthslong voyage around the Mediterranean with his companion and fellow artist Cy Twombly just two years prior to making Levee, Rauschenberg came face-to-face with an Old Master painting which radically altered his conception of art. “One of the great paintings that left a mark on me is Leonardo’s Annunciation in Florence,” Rauschenberg later recalled. “In that canvas the tree, the rock, the Virgin are all of equal importance. There is no gradation. It was Leonardo da Vinci’s Annunciation that provided the shock which made me paint as I do now” (quoted in exh. cat., op. cit., 1976, p. 3). Twombly was similarly influenced by the vestiges of the past observed on their trip. Rauschenberg’s appropriative method found valence with the preceding generation of Pop artists, informing Andy Warhol’s later silkscreens after Leonardo da Vinci and Sandro Botticelli.
An early and important entry in Rauschenberg’s decadelong exploration of beauty with his Combines, Levee provides a formative declaration of Robert Rauschenberg’s artistic philosophy. The work was first acquired by Lois Long, a textile designer and close friend and collaborator of John Cage. Levee was then acquired by Francois de Menil, whose family were early and important champions of the artist, in 1979. Francois’s sister Christophe was friendly with the artist early in his career, while his mother Dominique de Menil maintained a decades-long relationship with the artist, sponsoring several important exhibitions of Rauschenberg’s work at the Menil Collection in Houston—including his 1998 retrospective, which featured the present work. Levee finally entered the collection of Si Newhouse in 2002. With a vaunted provenance and pivotal position in Rauschenberg’s oeuvre, the work exemplifies what the art historian and critic Thomas Crow writes of the Combine series. “In their appearance, Rauschenberg’s Combines defy any conventional notion of the beautiful, but they plainly intend to explore the idea of beauty, with its intermingled consolations and perils” (“Rise and Fall: Theme and Idea in the Combines of Robert Rauschenberg” in exh. cat., op. cit., 2011, p. 240).
Built of interweaving layers of paper, newspaper, and fabric, Levee shows Rauschenberg at his most meditative and erudite. His careful juxtaposition of found materials and imagery constructs obscure iconographies which suggest autobiographical allusions, yet resist complete comprehension. Pasted onto the surface of the Combine is a reproduction of Lucas Cranach the Younger’s drawing of Princess Elizabeth of Saxony. Unlike his forebear Joseph Cornell, Rauschenberg did not draw symbolic or thematic resonances from his appropriated Old Masters, instead focusing on their formal reverberations. In this case, the exaggerated roundness of the princess’s forehead parallels the circularity of the salvaged truck tachograph pasted above. In the same horizontal frieze, Rauschenberg incorporates a patterned fabric square, a rectangular canvas landscape scene, and a further rectangular void, created by carefully slashing the canvas—in a technique anticipatory of Lucio Fontana’s iconic Tagli—to reveal the darkness below. Rauschenberg’s most innovative inclusion here is the cream necktie, seemingly attached to the composition with a dripping splash of bright yellow paint. This was the first tie to appear in Rauschenberg’s Combines, and would become an enduring motif throughout his practice. As a final step, the artist applied smatterings and lines of paint over and across the work in a technique aping the Abstract Expressionists. The effect was to insist upon the real materiality of his media, rejecting any notion of pictorial illusion or invented space. “Rauschenberg’s imagery needed bedrock as hard and tolerant as a work bench,” Steinberg describes. “If some collage element, such as a pasted-down photograph, threatened to evoke a topical illusion of depth, the surface was casually stained or smeared with paint to recall its irreducible flatness. The ‘integrity of the picture plane’—once the accomplishment of good design—was to become that which is given” (ibid., pp. 92-94).
Pondering Levee, Steinberg notes the importance of “the necktie in Rauschenberg iconography” (ibid., p. 198). Levee marks the first appearance of the motif, which later reappears in some of Rauschenberg’s most important works. The first state of his famed Monogram (1955-1959, Moderna Museet, Stockholm), conceived contemporaneously with the present work, also includes a tie. Rauschenberg later reworked the back element of Monogram into Rhyme (1956, The Museum of Modern Art, New York) and Summerstorm (1959, Private collection, Los Angeles), both of which recapitulate the necktie. Of the approximately eleven Combines which include neckties, all but three reside in museum collections, underscoring the critical importance of the motif to the artist’s oeuvre. When asked about the significance of neckties in his work in a 2006 interview, Rauschenberg relayed: “It always come to that climax of how things are held together" (quoted in “Robert Rauschenberg and Calvin Tomkins: A Conversation about Art and Life,” The Metropolitan Museum of Art, YouTube, 5 February 2006, online).
1955 was Rauschenberg’s annus mirabilis, when he “established the methodology and philosophy that he would mine for the next four decades” as the art historian Sam Hunter writes (Robert Rauschenberg, New York, 1999, p. 83). From the previous December into January, Rauschenberg held his first solo show at Egan Gallery, facilitated by his friend and fellow artist, Jack Tworkov. This show, a “particularly important milestone in the artist’s career,” revealed to the New York public his new emerging style which he would further refine through the remainder of the year (B.W. Joseph, “‘Disparate Visual Facts': Early Combines” in Robert Rauschenberg, exh. cat., The Museum of Modern Art, New York, 2016, p. 139). Reviewing the show, Frank O’Hara wrote, “Bob Rauschenberg, enfant terrible of the New York School, is back again to even more brilliant effect… For all the baroque exuberance of the show, quieter pictures evidence a serious lyrical talent” (“Reviews and Previews: Bob Rauschenberg" in Artnews, 53, no. 9, January 1955, p. 47).
Levee, made following O’Hara’s enthusiastic review, perfectly articulates Rauschenberg’s “lyrical talent.” His move to Pearl Street, where his new studio was right above Jasper Johns’s loft, immersed him in the distinct downtown scene. Rauschenberg and Johns, together with the avant-garde composer John Cage and his partner, the choreographer Merce Cunningham, sought to break out from the overwhelming influence of the Abstract Expressionists, still predominant in the city’s art scene. “New York is a maze of unorganized experiences peopled by the unexpected—change is unavoidable,” the artist described of his new home, which informed his Combines (quoted in L. Alloway, “Rauschenberg’s Development” in Robert Rauschenberg, exh. cat., National Collection of Fine Arts, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., 1976, p. 11). The bits of urban detritus scattered around the environs of Rauschenberg’s new studio provided the material for his new series of Combines. The artist’s new environment and close circle of peers provided the inspiration for his radical break with artistic tradition, as demonstrated by Levee and Bed, his iconic Combine made from his own bed and now in the collection of The Museum of Modern Art. Paralleling Bed, Rauschenberg makes notable use of bed linens in the present work. “At a time when the primacy of New York School painting remained relatively unchallenged,” the curator Paul Schimmel notes, “the Combines paved the way for a new direction in art, one that was subsequently explored by a wide range of artists” (“Autobiography and Self-Portraiture in Rauschenberg’s Combines” in Robert Rauschenberg: Combines, exh. cat., Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, 2011, p. 211).
Rauschenberg’s inclusion of a reproduction of a Lucas Cranach drawing is one of the first appearances of an Old Master in his work, a subject which would continually reappear throughout his oeuvre. This inclusion both recalls the Surrealist and Dada traditions from which the Combines emerge, with artists including Marcel Duchamp, Joseph Cornell, and Kurt Schwitters incorporating Italian Renaissance works into their collage practices. On a formative monthslong voyage around the Mediterranean with his companion and fellow artist Cy Twombly just two years prior to making Levee, Rauschenberg came face-to-face with an Old Master painting which radically altered his conception of art. “One of the great paintings that left a mark on me is Leonardo’s Annunciation in Florence,” Rauschenberg later recalled. “In that canvas the tree, the rock, the Virgin are all of equal importance. There is no gradation. It was Leonardo da Vinci’s Annunciation that provided the shock which made me paint as I do now” (quoted in exh. cat., op. cit., 1976, p. 3). Twombly was similarly influenced by the vestiges of the past observed on their trip. Rauschenberg’s appropriative method found valence with the preceding generation of Pop artists, informing Andy Warhol’s later silkscreens after Leonardo da Vinci and Sandro Botticelli.
An early and important entry in Rauschenberg’s decadelong exploration of beauty with his Combines, Levee provides a formative declaration of Robert Rauschenberg’s artistic philosophy. The work was first acquired by Lois Long, a textile designer and close friend and collaborator of John Cage. Levee was then acquired by Francois de Menil, whose family were early and important champions of the artist, in 1979. Francois’s sister Christophe was friendly with the artist early in his career, while his mother Dominique de Menil maintained a decades-long relationship with the artist, sponsoring several important exhibitions of Rauschenberg’s work at the Menil Collection in Houston—including his 1998 retrospective, which featured the present work. Levee finally entered the collection of Si Newhouse in 2002. With a vaunted provenance and pivotal position in Rauschenberg’s oeuvre, the work exemplifies what the art historian and critic Thomas Crow writes of the Combine series. “In their appearance, Rauschenberg’s Combines defy any conventional notion of the beautiful, but they plainly intend to explore the idea of beauty, with its intermingled consolations and perils” (“Rise and Fall: Theme and Idea in the Combines of Robert Rauschenberg” in exh. cat., op. cit., 2011, p. 240).
