Test Stone #1
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View on museum website →Medium
lithograph on Rives BFK wove paper
Dimensions
sheet: 51 x 38 cm (20 1/16 x 14 15/16 in.)
Classification
Department
CG-W
Museum
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Credit
Gift of Gemini G.E.L. and the Artist
Accession Number
1981.5.230
Art Historical Context
**Test Stone #1** by Robert Rauschenberg, in 1967, the artist's pioneering spirit in printmaking during a transformative period in American art. Rauschenberg, a key figure in the Neo-Dada and Pop Art, blurred boundaries between painting, sculpture, and everyday objects through his innovative "Combines." By the mid-1960s, he turned to lithography, collaborating with Gemini G.E.L., the renowned Los Angeles print workshop that pushed technical boundaries for contemporary artists. This intimate sheet-sized work (51 x 38 cm) reflects that experimental ethos, gifted to the National Gallery of Art by...
About the Artist
Robert Rauschenberg
Robert Rauschenberg, born Milton Ernest Rauschenberg on October 22, 1925, in Port Arthur, Texas, to parents Ernest R. Rauschenberg and Dora Carolina (née Matson), grew up in a Fundamentalist Christian household. Initially enrolled in pharmacology at the University of Texas at Austin, he dropped out and pursued art studies at the Kansas City Art Institute and Paris's Académie Julian, where he met a...