Born as Milton Ernest Rauschenberg in Port Arthur, Texas, obert Rauschenberg was the son of Ernest and Dora Rauschenberg. His father was of German ancestry and his mother of Anglo-Saxon origins. Both his parents were strict Christians. Rauschenberg completed his studies at the Kansas City Art Institute and the Academie Julian located in Paris, France, where he became acquainted with the famous painter, Susan Weil. Around the year, 1948, Rauschenberg and Weil made the decision to attend Black Mountain College located in North Carolina.

Josef Albers became Rauschenberg's painting instructor at Black Mountain. Rauschenberg learned much from Albers and they shared a close relationship. Albers' preliminary courses relied heavily on a strict discipline that did not allow for any experimentation. Rauschenberg once described Josef Albers as influencing him to do "exactly the reverse" of what he was being taught.

From the years 1949 to 1952, Robert Rauschenberg studied with the likes of Vaclay Vytlacil and Morris Kantor at the Art Students League of New York, where he met another artist - Cy Twombly.

In 1950, Robert Rauschenberg was married to Susan Weil. The couple had one child, Christopher, who was born on July 16, 1951. Subsequently, the couple divorced in 1953. According to a 1987 oral history by the composer Morton Feldman, after the end of his marriage to Weil, Rauschenberg had sexual relationships with fellow artists - Cy Twonbly and Jasper Johns. John D. Katz states in a rather famous article that Rauschenberg's affair with Cy Twombly began during his marriage to Susan Weil.