




Words Appearing in a Dream of William Burroughs Signed Poster
This 1972 offset lithograph captures Rauschenberg's fascination with language as both visual and conceptual material, translating the dream logic of William Burroughs into a composition where words become abstract forms competing for the viewer's attention. The poster format, created in an edition of 150 with this being number 145, democratizes the image while maintaining the artist's characteristic layering of text, imagery, and chance operations. Rauschenberg's approach here reflects his broader practice of collapsing distinctions between high and low culture, where a literary figure's unconscious imaginings are rendered through the accessible medium of poster production, signed to authenticate the work while embracing its reproducibility. The convergence of two major countercultural figures, Rauschenberg and Burroughs, speaks to a shared interest in disrupting conventional meaning-making through visual and textual fragmentation. The work operates as both a tribute to Burroughs' innovative cut-up technique and a demonstration of Rauschenberg's own methodology, wherein meaning emerges not from linear narrative but from the dynamic interactions between disparate elements. At this price point, the piece represents an important opportunity to acquire a significant work from the artist's mature period, when his engagement with printmaking had become a central vehicle for his artistic investigations into communication, memory, and the spaces between intention and accident.
- Medium
- Robert Rauschenberg, Words Appearing in a Dream of William Burroughs, 1972, Signed, Poster (offset lithograph), Edition 145/150, 34" x 24" Sheet Size, 34" x 24" Image Size
- Spotted At
- Gallery · Georgetown Frame Shoppe
More by Robert Rauschenberg
Collectors of Robert Rauschenberg
Also spotted by
Artists in conversation

Jasper Johns
American · b. 1930

Johns similarly treats language and letterforms as visual objects with both conceptual weight and painterly presence, using printed editions and lithography to explore how words function simultaneously as meaning and pure form.

Ed Ruscha
American · b. 1937

Ruscha shares Rauschenberg's obsession with words as visual and conceptual material, producing offset lithographs and printed multiples where language floats in ambiguous space, merging poetic logic with graphic clarity in democratic edition formats.
Brion Gysin
British · b. 1916
Gysin was a direct collaborator with William Burroughs on cut up text experiments and created visual works where words dissolve into abstract patterns, making his work the closest parallel to this piece's fusion of Burroughs dream logic with language as competing visual form.

![Duet [Anagram (A Pun)]](https://rtwaymdozgnhgluydsys.supabase.co/storage/v1/object/public/artwork-images/1BDDC6C9-713B-4E33-A3AB-1D77A076A44C/C31FBA06-7157-46C9-838D-F46B2CE3302E/0.jpg)
Start the Discussion
Request access to join the discussion