Night Bloomings (1951)

Made outdoors at Black Mountain College, North Carolina, in August 1951, the Night Bloomings were compositions of “red lead, black, and enamel white” pressed onto the ground so that gravel, dirt, and, occasionally, insects adhered to their surfaces. They also often incorporated bitumen. Rauschenberg asserted that the series originally numbered “at least twenty,” of which only three are known to be extant. Most of the works were either lost or overpainted; the artist recalled that he “painted over them just as fast as I could make them.”