But I was in awe of the painters; I mean I was new in New York, and I thought the painting that was going on here was just unbelievable.

Some critics according to The Daily Telegraph considered the work to be a symbol for violence and rape. His father was of German and Cherokee ancestry and his mother of Anglo-Saxon descent. Life and career
Rauschenberg was born as Milton Ernest Rauschenberg in Port Arthur Texas the son of Dora Carolina (née Matson) and Ernest R.

Robert Rauschenberg (October 22 1925 – May 12 2008) was an American painter and graphic artist whose early works anticipated the pop art movement. Rauschenberg was both a painter and a sculptor and the Combines are a combination of both but he also worked with photography printmaking papermaking and performance. Rauschenberg is well known for his "Combines" of the 1950s in which non-traditional materials and objects were employed in innovative combinations.