
"Although Sundog … suggests a landscape — a heavenly orb appears at right and a cloudscape at left — its primary subject seems to be man’s efforts to keep pace with events and changes of the modern, technological world."
Broadcasting an entrancing cacophony of visual stimuli across its rich surface, Sundog from 1962 is an indisputable testament to Robert Rauschenberg’s voracious creativity. More than simply a visual artist, Rauschenberg was truly a poet of forms who constantly sought to free his images from the confines of visual language and its prescribed logic, instead presenting his viewer with an array of literal and associative referents that at once beg and categorically deny interpretation. The present work is one of the very first in a series of black-and-white silkscreens that Rauschenberg began in October 1962, having recently moved into a spacious new studio in Lower Manhattan. Sundog deploys his radical new method to powerful effect, juxtaposing a variety of images and gestures into a distinctly contemporary brand of collage. Demonstrating its importance, Sundog was notably illustrated on the cover of “Random Order,” a manifesto published by Rauschenberg in Location magazine shortly after the completion of his first series of silkscreen paintings; the project illustrated Rauschenberg’s interest in finding connections among the disparate events of daily life, establishing the crucial conceptual foundation that would define his entire career. In a testament to its importance within Rauschenberg’s seminal and groundbreaking oeuvre, Sundog was previously owned by esteemed collector Bill Janss, who amassed one of the foremost art collections of the twentieth century, before being acquired by Emily Fisher Landau in 1986; it has remained in her distinguished collection for nearly 40 years. With its clever amalgamation of art historical references, 1960s newsmedia imagery and characteristic painterly finesse, Sundog endures as one of Rauschenberg’s greatest silkscreens, making it a precious relic from an unforgettable era.

Taking its title from the natural occurrence of the same name, in which colored spots of light appear on either side of the sun; caused by the refraction of light through ice crystals, this scientific phenomenon has myriad mythical, historical, and superstitious associations. For instance, the term “sun dog” may have originated in Greek mythology, when it was believed the god Zeus walked his dogs across the sky, and that the bright "false suns" in the sky on either side of the sun's disk were the dogs. Further, in King Henry VI, Part III, William Shakespeare dramatized the appearance of “three suns” before the Battle of Mortimer’s Cross in 1461; the Yorkist commander, later Edward IV of England, convinced his initially frightened troops that it represented the three sons of the Duke of York, and Edward's troops won a decisive victory. And, in folk wisdom, the appearance of sundogs is a portent of imminent rain. Rauschenberg’s use of the term underlines his interest in creating connections across eras, belief systems, and media.

“Rauschenberg gives new power to the dynamic means of the Cubists; he speeds up the simultaneous viewpoint befitting a more mobile observer and a faster changing world; his distortions in scale are more fantastic; his shifts in space and meaning are more abrupt; and the dialogue between substance and illusion and between art and reality is ever more complex."

In an extended analysis of Sundog for the Whitney Museum’s exhibition catalogue, Robert Rauschenberg: The Silkscreen Paintings, Roni Feinstein writes: “Although Sundog … suggests a landscape — a heavenly orb appears at right and a cloudscape at left — its primary subject seems to be man’s efforts to keep pace with events and changes of the modern, technological world. At the center is a giant radio transmitter/receiver (designed to exchange signals with the satellites and space vehicles launched from the earth); the tiny figures of a few men climbing the structure are dramatically silhouetted upon it. The radio dish stands as both a symbol for advanced technology and as an emblem for the world itself… At the lower left in Sundog is a male swimmer doing the crawl. The swimmer, whose figure recurs in numerous works, seems to be Rauschenberg’s Everyman, a symbol of the human struggle to cope with an ever-changing, ever-expanding world” (Roni Feinstein in Exh. Cat., New York, Whitney Museum of American Art, Robert Rauschenberg: The Silkscreen Paintings, 1962-64, 1990-91, pp. 77-78).

The dominant screened image, taken from a Life Magazine photograph, depicts engineers working on a satellite. Rauschenberg’s fascination with the imagery of the “space age” appears and reappears throughout the silkscreen paintings of the 60s; unlike the pervading narrative in the press at the time, which positioned space exploration as a unique condition in human history, Rauschenberg emphasized the historical connections between old and new technology, underlining the enterprise as one stage in a continuous human drive to learn and explore the unknown.
Balancing the crisp, mechanical imagery of these screened images, Rauschenberg adds a further contrast with his coarse, gestural brushstrokes. His most lavish, painterly brushwork is visible in the upper right quadrant, where emphatic black, grey, and white strokes evoke the spontaneous gestures of the Abstract Expressionists.
Taking its title from the natural occurrence of the same name, in which colored spots of light appear on either side of the sun; caused by the refraction of light through ice crystals, this scientific phenomenon has myriad mythical, historical, and superstitious associations. Rauschenberg’s use of the term underlines his interest in creating connections across eras, belief systems, and media.
Demonstrating its importance, Sundog was notably illustrated on the cover of “Random Order,” a manifesto published by Rauschenberg in Location magazine shortly after the completion of his first series of silkscreen paintings; the project illustrated Rauschenberg’s interest in finding connections among the disparate events of daily life, establishing the crucial conceptual foundation that would define his entire career.
In September 1962, the year in which the present work was painted, Rauschenberg visited Andy Warhol's studio with Ileana and Michael Sonnabend just as Warhol was experimenting with the silkscreen method himself. Both artists shared an affinity for imagery culled from popular culture and mass media, as well as the flatness of the silkscreen process. By incorporating into the realm of fine art a method of image-making previously confined to the domain of commercial advertising, these two giants of the twentieth century forever shifted the dynamic of painterly discourse within the canon of art history.
This billowing plume of smoke implies both a rocket blast-off and an atomic cloud. The source image is taken from an American Airlines advertisement in the September 24, 1962 issue of Newsweek, underlining the artist’s interest in advancing technology and flight. By removing the photograph from its context, Rauschenberg creates the possibility for myriad interpretations.
The complexity of enigmatic imagery and the sheer painterly finesse of bravura brushwork exhibited in Sundog exemplify the pictorial flair of Rauschenberg's iconic 1960s masterworks. The dominant screened image, taken from a Life Magazine photograph of engineers working on a satellite, is juxtaposed with an image of an athletic swimmer in open water, as well as a billowing plume of smoke that implies both a rocket blast-off and an atomic cloud. The source image for this cloud is taken from an American Airlines advertisement in the September 24, 1962 issue of Newsweek, underlining the artist’s interest in advancing technology and flight. Rauschenberg’s fascination with the imagery of the “space age” appears and reappears throughout the silkscreen paintings of the 60s; unlike the pervading narrative in the press at the time, which positioned space exploration as a unique condition in human history, Rauschenberg emphasized the historical connections between old and new technology, underlining the enterprise as one stage in a continuous human drive to learn and explore the unknown. Balancing the crisp, mechanical imagery of these screened images, Rauschenberg adds a further contrast with his coarse, gestural brushstrokes. His most lavish, painterly brushwork is visible in the upper right quadrant, where emphatic black, grey, and white strokes evoke the spontaneous gestures of the Abstract Expressionists. Throughout Rauschenberg’s career, often at important transitional moments, he drained his works of color in favor of a monochromatic palette. As he explained to art critic Calvin Tomkins, “I'm such a pushover for color and I didn't want that to interfere with what I was trying to work out” (Ibid., p. 14). Together, the photographic imagery and expressionist finesse combine to form a veritable treatise on the role and status of painting in twentieth century art history.


In September 1962, the year in which the present work was painted, Rauschenberg visited Andy Warhol's studio with Ileana and Michael Sonnabend just as Warhol was experimenting with the silkscreen method himself. Both artists shared an affinity for imagery culled from popular culture and mass media, as well as the flatness of the silkscreen process. By incorporating into the realm of fine art a method of image-making previously confined to the domain of commercial advertising, these two giants of the twentieth century forever shifted the dynamic of painterly discourse within the canon of art history. Though exercised to diametrically opposed ends — Warhol sought the explicit dismissal of the significance of the artist’s touch by emphasizing the coolly repetitive, mechanistic process; whereas Rauschenberg devised a heady mix of imagery that fundamentally retained something of the expressive and painterly — both artists used the silkscreen method to seize upon the prevailing desire of the moment to strip away the recent past and re-examine the nature of painting.

In contrast to his earlier Combine paintings, which were muscular collages of mundane found objects, the silkscreen paintings are two dimensional collages, in which images (not objects) are enjambed and conflated. In Sundog, Rauschenberg’s images relinquish all ties to temporality, operating instead within a limitless expanse of past and present, as if our own memory were recorded within the confines of the artist’s canvas. As such, this work exemplifies Ellen Johnson’s articulation of the essence of the artist’s silkscreen practice: “Rauschenberg gives new power to the dynamic means of the Cubists; he speeds up the simultaneous viewpoint befitting a more mobile observer and a faster changing world; his distortions in scale are more fantastic; his shifts in space and meaning are more abrupt; and the dialogue between substance and illusion and between art and reality is ever more complex” (Ellen H. Johnson, “The Image Duplicators — Lichtenstein, Rauschenberg, and Warhol,” Canadian Art, vol. XXIII, no. 1, January 1966, p. 17). A brilliant summation of this definitive description, Sundog is simultaneously archetypal of a seminal series within the career of one of the most influential artists of the twentieth century, whilst also monumentalizing the proliferation of mass-media imagery that so profoundly characterized the historic moment of its creation.
