Accession Number
97417
Medium
Color photoetching from three plates on ivory wove paper
Dimensions
Upper plate: 16.5 × 24.5 cm (6 1/2 × 9 11/16 in.); Middle plate: 35 × 52 cm (13 13/16 × 20 1/2 in.); Lower plate: 34.5 × 52 cm (13 5/8 × 20 1/2 in.); Sheet: 110.8 × 77.8 cm (43 5/8 × 30 11/16 in.)
Classification
etching
Credit Line
U.L.A.E. Collection acquired through a challenge grant of Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Dittmer; purchased with funds provided by supporters of the Department of Prints and Drawings; Centennial Endowment; Margaret Fisher Endowment Fund
Background & Context
Background Story
"The Razorback Bunch (Etching V)" is a 1982 color photoetching by Robert Rauschenberg that captures the American artist in his most technically ambitious and chromatically daring mode, the image showing photographic imagery rendered with the color photoetching from three plates on ivory wove paper, the technique creating a surface of extraordinary precision and visual complexity. The composition is a large etching—sheet 110.8 × 77.8 centimeters—with three separate plates creating an image of extraordinary scale and visual impact, the color photoetching technique suggesting both the mechanical reproduction of the photograph and the painterly transformation of the print medium. The ivory wove paper provides a warm, luminous ground that makes the photographic colors appear rich and substantial, enhancing the sense of technological innovation and artistic ambition. The 1982 date places this work in the period of Rauschenberg's continued exploration of the photoetching medium and his engagement with the themes of mass media, popular culture, and the American landscape. Art historians have connected this print to the broader tradition of the photographic assemblage in contemporary art, from the photo collages of the German expressionists to the installations of the present, noting that Rauschenberg's treatment is more focused on the coloristic harmony and the technical innovation, the transformation of mechanical reproduction into artistic vision, than the political critique or the social commentary of these other traditions.
Cultural Impact
This 1982 color photoetching made photographic assemblage chromatically ambitious through large 110cm three-plate ivory-paper precision and coloristic mechanical-reproduction transformation, using continued photoetching exploration to transform mass-media imagery into artistic vision beyond German expressionist political collage.
Why It Matters
It matters because Rauschenberg printed a bunch of razorback images and made the paper feel like it was riding through America in full color—proving that even a photograph could be an adventure if the plates were bold enough.
