Robert Rauschenberg & Cy Twombly

Cy Twombly and Robert Rauschenberg inspired each other throughout their lives, their histories greatly intertwined. They first met in 1950 as students at BMC’s summer session. Two years later, Twombly won a grant, which he used to travel to Europe and North Africa, inviting Rauschenberg to join him on the trip. The two quickly became friends and often traveled abroad with one another continuously making art. Rauschenberg often adopted and built upon techniques from the ones around him. In his mixed media piece The Bed (1955), evidence of Cy Twombly’s work is found through the splatter stains on the pillow painted in Rauschenberg’s hand. “The stains on the pillow appear to be a reference to the work of Cy Twombly, an artist who occasionally worked in Rauschenberg's studio and whose work Rauschenberg described as an accumulation of "erotic paint." The integration of techniques in this work reflects how interconnected Rauschenberg and Twombly became as a result of BMC. The two also collaborated on the creation of several of Rauschenberg’s work including his White Paintings series.