Gold Paintings (1953–ca. 1956)

Rauschenberg created all but one of the Gold Paintings between late 1953 and 1956 in his Fulton and Pearl Street studios in New York. The works were a means of “testing the market” in relation to a painting or paintings he made concurrently from toilet paper. “Gold stays,” he later observed, “and toilet paper gets thrown away.” Characterized by their highly tactile surfaces, the Gold Paintings consist of gold (and sometimes silver) leaf applied to grounds of newspaper, paper, fabric, and the occasional found object. Rauschenberg had access to gold leaf through his work as a window display designer. So that the paintings could “respond to the wind,” he constructed frames that were open on two sides, allowing air to pass through and animate the gold leaf.