Oral history interview with Jack Cowart, 2015

Biographical Note

Jack Cowart was born in Fort Riley, Kansas, and grew up outside of Philadelphia. An art historian with a particular expertise in Henri Matisse and Roy Lichtenstein, he has held leadership positions at a number of American art institutions, including the Corcoran Gallery of Art and the National Gallery of Art, and is the current Executive Director of the Roy Lichtenstein Foundation

Scope and Contents

Jack Cowart is the current head of the Roy Lichtenstein Foundation. He reflects on his personal experience with his friend Robert Rauschenberg as it intersects with his own career trajectory. He discusses how his initial encounters with Rauschenberg influenced his notions of the living artist and the artist's studio, prompting a shift to a contemporary-focused career at the Wadsworth Atheneum in the early 1970s, and then at the St. Louis Art Museum from the late 1970s to the early 1980s. He talks about his involvement with Rauschenberg Overseas Culture Interchange (ROCI) and it's importance in allowing the space for contemporary artists to be shown in the same context as classical artists at the institution. Cowart reflects on his experiences with Rauschenberg at the Captiva estate. He talks about the initiation of a creative space as the premise of Rauschenberg's ROCI project and argues against the notion of an imperialistic motivation

Subjects

• Art--Exhibitions.
• Art museums--United States.
• Captiva Island (Fla.)
• Cowart, Jack--Interviews.
• Cowart, Jack--Interviews.
• Interviews.
• Museum directors--Interviews.
• National Gallery of Art (U.S.)
• Oral histories (literary works)
• Rauschenberg, Robert, 1925-2008.
• Rauschenberg Overseas Culture Interchange.
• Roy Lichtenstein Foundation.
• Sinclair, Sara, interviewer.
• St. Louis Art Museum.
• Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art.

Access Conditions

Copyright by the Trustees of Columbia University in the City of New York and Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, 2015