This Is the First Half of a Print Designed to Exist in Passing Time

Robert Rauschenberg

American, 1925–2008

This Is the First Half of a Print Designed to Exist in Passing Time, ca. 1949

Graphite on tracing paper and woodcuts with twine and staples

Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, New York

This hand-bound artist’s book consists of fourteen woodcuts made with a single block. Between printings, Rauschenberg cut more grooves into the block so that each successive page gains an additional white line. One of the artist’s earliest surviving works, the book demonstrates that he explored serial imagery and embodiments of time from the start of his career.