“Rauschenberg gave artists an enormous sense of permission,” says Helen Molesworth, chief curator at the Los Angeles Museum of Art. Hailing from Port Arthur, Texas, Robert Rauschenberg studied art at the Kansas City Art Institute, the Académie Julian, and Black Mountain College. He himself has said he was not a particularly disciplined student; in fact, his wayward energy influenced almost all postwar art movements. Rauschenberg never bowed to boundaries but traversed mediums through his use of “treasures,” objects he found in his everyday life. To honor his upcoming 100th birthday, Gladstone Gallery presents Rauschenberg’s untethered creations. —Henry McGrath