Robert Rauschenberg American, 1925-2008
57.8 x 73 cm
Rauschenberg Foundation archive no. RRF 58.D032
Leo Castelli Gallery, New York,
Registry #LCD-29
An idyllic sounding title names a work that is much about doubling. This is especially true of the pair of perpendicular figures at the centre, placed on either side of a protective suited diver (or astronaut?). The pair to the right is slightly fainter, as a second use of a source image would be, and they strongly recall the Dante and Virgil stand-ins in the contemporary Dante illustrations,
begun the same year. The woman exercising at upper left is also a doubled identical image, stacked
vertically and the circular diagram at top centre is excised and doubled at some distance, at the lower left corner, just below a pair of jewels.
The circle proves to be part of a diagrammatic land map, labelled ‘Acquire for Addition to Division’.
It shows three streets: Dayton and Newtown Lanes, and Main Street. The former two are indeed parallel lanes that intersect with Main Street in East Hampton, Long Island, a popular
destination for post-war artists. Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns visited the area the following summer. They were part of a large group photograph by John Gruen that included artists Larry Rivers and Grace Hartigan on nearby Water Mill beach.
Provenance
Galerie Daniel Cordier, Paris
Private Collection, USA
Private Collection
Exhibitions
Rome, Galleria La Tartaruga, Rauschenberg, 30 May - 1 June 1959
Paris, Galerie Daniel Cordier, Robert Rauschenberg, 27 April - 8 June 1961
New York, Stellan Holm Gallery, Robert Rauschenberg, Transfer Drawings, 1958- 1969, 1 November 2011 to 17 December 2011