Oral history interview with Laurence Getford, 2015

Biographical Note

Laurence Getford is a visual artist and sound arts performer who has been a pioneer in new media since the early 1970s. After receiving an MFA from Rhode Island School of Design in 1976, Laurence continued to exhibit and perform while designing and constructing science museum multimedia exhibits. His work in multimedia theater in the late 1980s led to a daily working relationship with Robert Rauschenberg that spanned more than two decades. Getford researched and devised innovative techniques for digital-image processing, updating Rauschenberg's studio with digital printers in 1992. This new technology enabled a wider spectrum of chromatic possibilities, including inkjet transfers of full-color photography. These new printing techniques were instrumental to Rauschenberg’s art until his death in 2008, allowing for more saturated color transfers. Getford worked for the Rauschenberg Foundation until 2014 and now lives and works on an island in the Gulf of Mexico

Scope and Contents

Laurence Getford gives an overview of his early life as a fourth generation Floridian. Getford shares an account of his path to art school as a musician traveling around the south, and his admittance to Rhode Island School of Design. He details how he came to meet Rauschenberg in 1987 in Fort Myers, Florida, when Lawrence Voytek, Getford's friend and Rauschenberg's fabricator reached out to ask for help prepping work for Rauschenberg Overseas Culture Interchange (ROCI) CHINA. Getford describes how he was working in the city's school system at the time and learning a lot about the computers that the system was buying; ultimately it was this knowledge that Rauschenberg was attracted to. Getford describes an early project he worked on for Rauschenberg with Thomas Buehler that involved scanning photography of Rauschenberg's work, to prepare for the eventual digitization of everything for archival purposes. Getford details his work on Inkjet transfers with Rauschenberg on multiple series over the next twenty years, as well as his work on the Lotus series. He also provides an account of the other people involved in producing the work in Rauschenberg's Captiva studio at the time. Getford speaks about Rauschenberg's move to Captiva: the community created there, the feeling of physical remoteness in the early days, and the party scene that emerged. Getford speaks about the presence of alcohol in the studio, and how the effect of the alcohol changed after Rauschenberg's stroke. He reminisces about his trips to New York City to empty the studio of work in advance of hurricane season, shares his impressions of New York City museum and gallery shows, and also his impressions of the collection of photographic images Rauschenberg captured on his travels

Subjects

• Artistic collaboration.
• Captiva Island (Fla.)
• Frohnert, Christine interviewer.
• Getford, Laurence--Interviews.
• Interviews.
• Oral histories (literary works)
• Prints--Technique .
• Rauschenberg, Robert, 1925-2008.
• Rauschenberg Overseas Culture Interchange.
• Sinclair, Sara interviewer.
• Sound in art.
• Sound installations (Art)--United States.
• Technology in art.
• Voytek, Lawrence.

Access Conditions

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