This book was published on the occasion of Robert Rauschenberg: Important Early Works from the Cy Twombly Foundation at Gagosian, 980 Madison at 76th Street, New York, which presented six significant early works by the artist from the Cy Twombly Foundation. The exhibition was organized during the centennial of Rauschenberg’s birth and accompanied an exhibition of works by Marcel Duchamp that inaugurated the gallery’s new ground-floor space. It featured one of Rauschenberg’s earliest known surviving sculptures, an assemblage from 1950; a photogram made in collaboration with Susan Weil; and key entries in the Black Painting, Elemental Sculpture, and Combine series. Together, these works chart Rauschenberg’s engagement with Duchamp’s reconception of art making and anticipate the incorporation of technology and performance into his practice.

The volume includes images of all the works in the exhibition accompanied by details and catalogue entries by Gillian Pistell, as well as studio photography and reproductions of handwritten correspondence between Rauschenberg and Twombly. It also features the illustrated essay “Cy and Bob: An Enduring Friendship” by Susan Davidson, which traces the close creative and sometimes complicated personal relationship between the two artists, which developed following their initial meeting at the Art Students League in New York in 1951.