Robert Rauschenberg, an innovative visionary and Texas art hero, embraced adventure even as a toddler. A vintage photo captures a moment while the three-year-old future artistic genius rode in a boat along a bayou in his hometown, Port Arthur, Texas, with his parents, Ernest and Dora Rauschenberg. That young boy would grow up to become one of the most significant artists of the 20th century and beyond.

2025 marked the 100th anniversary of Robert Rauschenberg’s birth. The ongoing centenary tributes, known as Rauschenberg 100, celebrate his artistic legacy.

Internationally, the artist‘s work is exhibited at M+ Museum in Hong Kong (through April 26) and the Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza in Madrid (through May 24). Last year, his Gluts series was shown at Galerie Thaddeus Ropac in Paris.

Stateside, Rauschenberg’s work is on view at the Grey Art Museum in New York City. In Houston, The Menil Collection’s recent exhibit “Robert Rauschenberg: Fabric Works of the 1970s” focused on rarely shown artworks made after the artist moved to Captiva Island, Florida. And in Dallas, Nasher Sculpture Center mounts “Rauschenberg Sculpture,” organized by senior curator Dr. Catherine Craft. The decades-spanning show marks the first museum presentation of the artist’s inventive three-dimensional works in 30 years.

Rauschenberg in Dallas

The exhibition, organized with support from the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, highlights some two dozen works, dating from the 1950s into the 1990s, on loan from the artist’s foundation in New York.

Showcased are seminal series, ranging from the Combines (memorably, the elemental Three Traps for Medea, 1959, formed from vernacular materials evoking a Gulf Coast fishing trap including metal, glass bottle, string, hair, and plumb bob) to the totemic image-imprinted Moondragger East (Japanese Claywork), 1982.

Other standouts include towering wood-and-metal risers topped by a prosaic pair of armchairs, The Ancient Incident (Kabal American Zephyr), 1981; and the mod Revolver V, 1967, with its five rotating Plexiglas discs powered by motors, the silkscreened discs rendered in brash Pop colors.

An Illustrious Career

Rauschenberg’s oeuvre is inextricably linked to various art movements including Pop Art, Neo Dadaism and Post-Minimalism. But his interest in arts extended beyond these. He often celebrated textiles through costume design connected to two lifelong loves: dance and theater.

Rauschenberg learned about fabrics and design within theater during his high school days in Port Arthur, and he later continued his studies at Black Mountain College in Asheville, North Carolina. It was there, in 1952, that he first collaborated with choreographer Merce Cunningham and composer John Cage creating sets, costumes and lighting.

In 1977, he worked with Cage and Cunningham on a show called Travelogue, which premiered at the Minskoff Theater in New York City on January 18, 1977. Rauschenberg designed the set and costumes for the show, which included John Cage’s composition “Telephones and Birds” (1970/1977). Part of Rauschenberg’s set, entitled Tantric Geography (1977), was displayed prominently in The Menil Collection exhibition.

A Son’s Memories

Christopher Rauschenberg, the artist’s son with Susan Weil, reminisced on a serendipitous journey to India with his father in 1975. As Christopher Rauschenberg tells PaperCity:

“I was in New York City getting ready for my first big solo show at 112 Greene Street, a nonprofit gallery. And my dad came to New York and said, ‘Oh yeah, I’m going to India. Do you want to come?’ And I said, ‘Yeah, but I have this show coming up.’ I forgot what it was at that point … three weeks away or something. He said, ‘Oh, come for two and a half weeks.’ I said, Oh, OK!’” (Rauschenberg laughs).

He recalls visiting the Sarabhai family estate, located near what Rauschenberg refers to as the Gandhi Ashram, known formally as the Sabermati Ashram in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India.

“I was on the Gandhi Ashram paper crew, and my dad and other folks were building structures out of cotton mud. And it was great. We had a great time. It was really fantastic,” Rauschenberg notes.

As for his favorite works of his father’s:

“I have always absolutely loved the Jammers, and think they are so beautiful and wonderful,” says Rauschenberg. “But the range of different ways to use and think about fabric is as interesting as any one individual thing. He’s always driven by this huge curiosity. It’s like, ‘What else could I do? What could I do that’s different from that?’ And to me, that’s the single most fascinating thing about it.”

“Rauschenberg Sculpture” is on view at Nasher Sculpture Center through Sunday, April 26. Learn more here.