American painter Robert Rauschenberg was BOTD in 1925. Born in Port Arthur, Texas, he briefly studied pharmacology before being drafted into the US Army during World War Two. After the war, he studied art in Kansas and Paris, before enrolling at the Black Mountain College in North Carolina. He became friends with the composer John Cage, sharing with him an interest in the avant-garde. He married friend and fellow artist Susan Weil in 1950, having a child together, before separating in 1952. Moving to New York, he had relationships with artists Cy Twombly and Jasper Johns, with whom he led the mid-century American art movement, bridging a transition between the macho posturings of Abstract Expressionist Jackson Pollock and the queer Pop Art of Andy Warhol. He is best known for his Combines series, incorporating everyday objects as art materials and blurring the boundaries between sculpture and painting. He also collaborated with Cage and choreographer Merce Cunningham on experimental dance-theatre pieces. He moved to Captiva Island in Florida in 1970, popularising the area as a tourist resort. Hailed in later life as one of the greatest American artists of the 20th century, he received the International Grand Prize in Painting in 1964 and the National Medal of Arts in 1993. He created Change Inc, a financial aid programme for artists, campaigned for artists to reclaim resale royalties, and supported a number of HIV/AIDS charities. He lived with his former assistant Darryl Pottorf for 25 years until his death in 2008, aged 82.