Introduction Rauschenberg's open-ended approach helped steer fine art print studios in new directions. Working collaboratively with talented printers, he challenged the limits of methods and materials: rethinking customary approaches to lithography, screenprint, and intaglio; adopting new processes such as digital imaging; and printing on unconventional papers, cardboard, fabric, and plastic. Rauschenberg's foray into printmaking was a seemingly natural development, for imprinting—the very essence of printmaking—had long played a role in his work, in the form of fingerprints impressed in his paintings and magazine images transferred to drawings. Publisher Tatyana Grosman of Universal Limited Art Editions (ULAE) on Long Island, New York, was the first to invite Rauschenberg to make prints. He accepted the invitation in 1962, and his relationship with that atelier continues to the present. |
Soviet/American Array III, 1988 photogravure Published by Universal Limited Art Editions, Bay Shore, New York National Gallery of Art, Gift of Universal Limited Art Editions and the Artist, 1991 |