Over his nearly six-decade career, Robert Rauschenberg (1925–2008) continually captured the zeitgeist of his time, from moon landings to the globalization of contemporary art. For his paintings, sculptures, prints, photographs, and performances he mined cultural detritus, imagery, and objects. Through stacking, layering, and transferring elements into nonlinear narratives, Rauschenberg achieved what he believed was a true representation of the twentieth century: “I was bombarded with TV sets and magazines, by the excesses of the world . . . I thought an honest work should incorporate all of these elements, which were and are a reality.”

The term “flatbed picture plane” in this show’s title refers to the flatbed printing press, a horizontal bed in which a surface to be printed rests. Art historian Leo Steinberg coined the phrase during a lecture in 1968, claiming it denoted a monumental perspectival shift that took place in artmaking in the early 1950s: from the vertical to horizontal. Steinberg believed this change began with artists including Rauschenberg who, rather than continue to employ the “window to the world” approach—one that “affirms verticality” and had dominated painting since the Renaissance—began treating artwork surfaces as if they were horizontal tabletops or studio floors. They also shifted their subject matter from nature to culture: “The pictures of the last fifteen to twenty years insist on a radically new orientation, in which the painted surface is no longer the analogue of a visual experience of nature but of operational processes.”

This exhibition examines Rauschenberg’s work through the concept of Steinberg’s flatbed picture plane. Created with a variety of printmaking techniques, each of the works presented here was conceived with horizontality in mind and reveals new images and meanings as the beholder meanders through the composition. Acquired for Sheldon Museum of Art’s collection between 1970 and 2018, the nine editioned works in this exhibition are presented together for the very first time.

Robert Rauschenberg and the Flatbed Picture Plane is organized by Christian Wurst, associate curator for exhibitions. 

With support from the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, Sheldon Museum of Art joins an international roster of institutions commemorating the 100th anniversary of the artist's birth in 1925. Additional exhibition support provided by David Clark Framing and Roseann and Phil Perry.