Robert Rauschenberg liked to experiment, and so, it seems, does his foundation. On October 22 — what would have been the artist's 101st birthday — the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation released the first installment of his digital catalogue raisonné, free to access and intended as a living scholarly resource.

This first part covers Rauschenberg's early years, a whirlwind period from 1948 to 1953 that saw him quit Kansas City for Paris, enroll at Black Mountain College and travel Italy with Cy Twombly. It lays out the chronology for 122 works, around a third of which remain lost and are illustrated in black and white. 'He was absorbing influences while resisting the idea that he should follow an established artistic model,' project manager Jackie Foster said of the period. 'You can see him beginning to develop the independent, experimental approach that would define his career.'

The project is the opening move in a much longer campaign: the foundation announced in 2022 that the full catalogue would run to 10 volumes covering the artist's paintings and sculptures through his death in 2008, published digitally over roughly two decades. The remaining five decades of production will take another 20 years to compile and upload.

Catalogues raisonnés are the official ledgers of an artist's oeuvre, and they have traditionally been bulky, expensive print volumes. Rauschenberg's digital-only approach breaks with that tradition — and because it is a living resource, researchers can update entries as scholarship evolves. For one of America's most prolific and shape-shifting artists, best known for his 'Combines' bridging painting and sculpture, the open-access format is a fitting tribute.