Robert Rauschenberg Quotes

• The artist’s job is to be a witness to his time in history.

  Robert Rauschenberg

  Topics in History, Job

  Tags in Artist

• Most artists try to break your heart, or they accidentally break their own hearts. But I find the quietness in the ordinary much more satisfying.

  Robert Rauschenberg

  Topics in Uncategorized

• I don’t like masterpieces having one-night stands in collectors’ homes between auctions.

  Robert Rauschenberg

  Topics in Uncategorized

• Painting relates to both art and life. Neither can be made – I try to act in the gap.

  Robert Rauschenberg

  Topics in Art

• I feel as though the world is a friendly boy walking along in the sun.

  Robert Rauschenberg

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Happiness

• A newspaper that you’re not reading can be used for anything; and the same people didn’t think it was immoral to wrap their garbage in newspaper.

  Robert Rauschenberg

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Anything, Same, Used

• An empty canvas is full.

  Robert Rauschenberg

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Full, Empty, Canvas

• But I found a lot of artists at the Cedar Bar were difficult for me to talk to.

  Robert Rauschenberg

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Difficult, Found

• And all of this, all these physical aspects of painting at that time excited me very much. You could do a picture in just black and white. I mean all the things, whether you’re soliciting permission or not, do give you permission.

  Robert Rauschenberg

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Mean, Black

• And I think that even today, New York still has more of this unexpected quality around every corner than any place else. It’s something quite extraordinary.

  Robert Rauschenberg

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Today, New

• But I was in awe of the painters; I mean I was new in New York, and I thought the painting that was going on here was just unbelievable.

  Robert Rauschenberg

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Mean, Thought

• And I think a painting has such a limited life anyway.

  Robert Rauschenberg

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Painting

• And also the new excitement and variety of ways that the abstract expressionists were applying paint. You could put it on as though it were colored air and it would be painting.

  Robert Rauschenberg

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Excitement

• I always have a good reason for taking something out but I never have one for putting something in. And I don’t want to, because that means that the picture is being painted predigested.

  Robert Rauschenberg

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Reason, Means, Picture

• Every time I’ve moved, my work has changed radically.

  Robert Rauschenberg

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Changed, Radically

• I don’t think any one person, whether artist or not, has been given permission by anyone to put the responsibility of the way things are on anyone else.

  Robert Rauschenberg

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Person, Put

• I did a twenty foot print and John Cage is involved in that because he was the only person I knew in New York who had a car and who would be willing to do this.

  Robert Rauschenberg

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in New, Person

• I don’t mess around with my subconscious.

  Robert Rauschenberg

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Around, Mess

• I got so I was really just sick of sculpture.

  Robert Rauschenberg

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Sick, Sculpture

• I think maybe chance works better in a situation like music because music exists over a period of time, and you don’t maintain constantly the you can’t refer back from one area to another area.

  Robert Rauschenberg

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Music, Better

Robert Rauschenberg (33)

Birth:	22nd October, 1925
Death:	12th May, 2008
Nationality:	American
Profession:	Painter

About

Robert Rauschenberg was an American painter and graphic artist whose early works anticipated the pop art movement. Rauschenberg is well known for his "Combines" of the 1950s, in which non-traditional materials and objects were employed in innovative combinations.

Related Authors

• August Macke
• Robert Storr
• Ad Reinhardt
• Howard Hodgkin
• Martin Mull
• Max Bill
• Ralph Ransom
• Alexander Liberman
• Tintoretto
• Paul Delvaux

Advertisement

Today's Anniversary - 6th December

Births

• 1875 - Evelyn Underhill
• 1968 - Kurt Angle
• 1935 - Robert Crandall
• 1942 - Peter Handke
• 1956 - Peter Buck

Deaths

• 1996 - Pete Rozelle
• 1933 - Stella Benson
• 1718 - Nicholas Rowe
• 1882 - Louis Blanc
• 1985 - Denis de Rougemont