Robert Rauschenberg

Robert Rauschenberg conducted an oral history interview with the Dorothy Seckler of the Smithsonian’s Archives of American Art on Dec. 21, 1965. He discussed his artistic influences, the conception and creation of many of his pieces, his role in artistic movements, his evolution as an artist, and many other topics.

He spoke of how living in New York as a struggling artist affected him. “I just don’t find it a very interesting motivation to work with the idea that things are difficult, or that I won’t accept the fact that things are easy. I think with affluence, which was very foreign to me during the period we’re talking about, there are new complications. If you don’t have trouble paying the rent, you have trouble doing something else; one needs just a certain amount of trouble. Some people need more trouble to operate and some people need less. And I felt very rich in being able to pick up Con Edison lumber from the streets and whatever the day would lay out for me to use in my work.”

Additional Interview With Robert Rauschenberg
Rauschenberg spoke with Paul Taylor, theater and art critic for British newspaper The Independent, for a 1990 piece in Interview Magazine. He touched on how an obsession with galleries and collecting has changed art. He said that people began to think, “Maybe I’ll get this one—a painting by this person—because it also might be very valuable someday,” and therefore, “People did not experience a painting on a one-to-one basis. That seems to have been lost in dollar signs and investment.”

Rauschenberg appeared on “Charlie Rose” on Feb. 27, 1998.

To learn more about Robert Rauschenberg, read his profile on findingDulcinea.