Robert Rauschenberg, "North African Collages and Scatole Personali c. 1952"

These very early collage pieces by Rauschenberg were created during a seven-month sojourn through Africa and Europe on which he was joined by Cy Twombly, which lasted from fall 1952 through spring 1953. Small in scale and cobbled together from locally scrounged materials, the works prefigured the much larger, sculptural "combines" that Rauschenberg would begin to make the year after his return.