Handle with Care: Robert Rauschenberg’s Ecological Conscience
September 9, 2025–April 11, 2026
Robert Rauschenberg believed that artists have both the imperative and power to promote responsible stewardship of the planet. The simultaneous expansion of the U.S. print market offered him an ideal vehicle to communicate timely messages regarding the precarity of the world’s habitats and inhabitants. Drawn from the NYU Art Collection, the eight works on view coincide with the rise of the American environmental movement in the 1970s and similarly impart concern for vulnerable people, animals, and habitats, at home and abroad. A concurrent boom in the American print market also allowed Rauschenberg to fundraise for environmental and humanitarian causes by creating special edition prints with a range of sponsors.
