“A pair of socks is no less suitable to make a painting with than wood, nails, turpentine, oil, and fabric.”
—Robert Rauschenberg
In January 1952, Cy Twombly received a traveling fellowship to Europe through the Virginia Museum of Art. Twombly wrote in his application, that exposure to European art would “broaden my own knowledge and concepts, not only for the painting I intend to do there, but for a lifetime of work.” Upon winning the fellowship, he asked Robert Rauschenberg to accompany him, and the two set sail for an eight-month excursion to Italy that would ultimately impact and define both artist’s oeuvres.
According to historian Nicholas Cullinan, now the director of the National Portrait Gallery in London, who pieced together the most detailed account of Twombly and Rauschenberg’s sojourn, Rauschenberg's main inspiration and focus was on documenting quotidian objects: graffiti on a crumbling wall, an old pair of shoes, bicycle parts, and so on. Traveling on a shoestring budget from the start, money quickly ran out and Rauschenberg left Twombly in Rome to chase work in Casablanca. While in Northern Africa, his material scavenging continued and he began collecting further bits of ephemera — twigs, feathers, rocks and bone, as well as native papers and old engravings from flea market bookstalls, to later be assembled.
Due to the budget constraints and semi-nomadic nature of his travels, Rauschenberg’s focus remained on found materials in easily packable sizes. Thus, a series of collages executed on cardboard inserts from laundered shirts was born. Later cited as the Made in Italy and North Africa series, the imagery ranges from minimal and austere to richly accumulated, each modestly sized collage offset against the negative space afforded by the standard-sized cardboard sheets.
Approximately forty years later, Rauschenberg produced a suite of print facsimiles 50 percent larger than the original works titled Shirtboards—Morocco/Italy, 1952 (1991). The artist undertook the reinterpretation of these early, experimental collages with master printer Adi Rischer of Styria Studios, New York in 1990. The fabrication involved photomechanical use of lithography and silkscreen techniques along with extensive handwork to capture the ephemeral nature of the original materials. The glue used to combine elements was applied intentionally imperfectly to enhance the idea that these works were a tangible scrapbook of a period of travel and exploration for the artist. To further convey the original intent of the collages, Rauschenberg and Rischer varied their materials, using a mix of handmade and commercial paper, silk and cotton fabrics, and hand-dyed feathers which harken back to his time spent scavenging in Africa.
By revisiting these collages, Shirtboards—Morocco/Italy, 1952 transports the viewer back to the intimate trip to Europe and North Africa that has been said to have defined Twombly and Rauschenberg’s careers, before they became giants of 20th century art. Published in 1991, when Rauschenberg had already reached indisputable benchmarks of success – solo shows at the Whitney, MoMA, and Smithsonian, a commission by the Vatican, and the International Grand Prize in Painting at the Venice Biennale – this portfolio offers a glimpse into the humble beginnings and early limitations that sparked Rauschenberg’s ingenuity and artistic genius.
