Art International - Pop Art at the Guggenheim

In this review of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum’s 1963 exhibition Six Painters and the Object, art historian Barbara Rose calls out Collection as possibly the best painting in the show. (See reference to Rauschenberg’s painting with collage elements of 1953–54 on first page. At the time, Collection was untitled and dated 1953–54; exhibition documentation confirms that it was the only Rauschenberg work in the show with this date.) Rose disputes the notion that Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns (b. 1930) are Pop artists, instead situating them as firmly in alignment with and responding to Abstract Expressionism. In describing Rauschenberg and Johns as bridge figures whose work links Abstract Expressionism and Pop art, Rose offers one of the first articulations of what has become the prevailing art historical positioning of these two artists.