Rauschenberg Piece on Display at The Huntington

The Huntington Library installed a work by artist Robert Rauschenberg (1925-2008) this week, and it will be available to view beginning Thursday.

The piece, entitled “Global Loft (Spread),” is eight feet tall and over nine feet wide, and is constructed of fabric, found objects and acrylic paint on wood panels. It is pictured above.

“’Global Loft’ is not intended to be narrative, yet it is impossible to avoid engaging with the iconography of the images that Rauschenberg chose to incorporate into the piece,” said Jessica Todd Smith, Virginia Steele Scott Chief Curator of American Art at The Huntington in a release. “You begin to ask, ‘What’s this? What’s that?’ It draws you in, inspiring study and contemplation. And, like so many of the materials in The Huntington’s collections—from Gainsborough’s Blue Boy, which originally inspired Rauschenberg, to botanical specimens and complex illuminated manuscripts—it prompts you to look closely and make your own discoveries and comparisons.”

The acquisition of this piece was made possible through funds from an anonymous donor, who donated money for the purchase of American art made after 1945 in memory of Robert Shapazian (1943–2010).

The Huntington Library is located at 1151 Oxford Road in San Marino.