- Rivers, Larry
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born Aug. 17, 1923, New York, N.Y., U.S.died Aug. 14, 2002, Southampton, N.Y.He studied at the Juilliard School in New York City and was a professional jazz saxophonist before turning to painting and studying with Hans Hofmann. His early works are characterized by frequent use of complex, fragmentary, and multiple views; perhaps the best-known is the harshly realistic Double Portrait of Berdie (1955). From the 1960s he introduced commercial images into his work, as well as elements of collage, construction, and sculpture; an elaborate example of his mixed-media works is The History of the Russian Revolution (1965).
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▪ 2003Yitzroch Loiza GrossbergAmerican artist (b. Aug. 17, 1923, New York, N.Y.—d. Aug. 14, 2002, Southampton, N.Y), had a comic sense, penchant for self-promotion, and libertine lifestyle that prefigured the irony, iconography, and celebrity of the Pop art movement. He was educated at the Juilliard School of Music, New York City, and performed as a saxophonist in bebop jazz bands of the 1940s before finding that he had an interest in and facility for painting. Following a short stint with the U.S. Army Air Corps band, he pursued art studies with Hans Hofmann, among others. Breaking early from Abstract Expressionism, he became known for wry, figurative works based on historic paintings, including The Burial (1951) and Washington Crossing the Delaware (1953). He was a keen draftsman with a regard for the Old Masters. Rivers exhibited in New York City at the Tibor de Nagy Gallery throughout the 1950s before switching over to the Marlborough Gallery in the early '60s. From that period his work incorporated elements of Pop art, mixing commercial packaging and everyday objects, notably in The History of the Russian Revolution (1965). Restlessly moving between different mediums and disciplines (painting, sculpture, film, video, performance, and design), he experimented constantly, allowing the quality of his work to fluctuate. Shortly before his death, a retrospective appeared at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. His 1992 autobiography What Did I Do? recounts the celebrity of his vie de bohème.* * *
▪ American painteroriginal name Yitzroch Loiza Grossbergborn August 17, 1923, New York, New York, U.S.died August 14, 2002, Southampton, New YorkAmerican painter whose works frequently combined the vigorous, painterly brushstrokes of Abstract Expressionism with the commercial images of the Pop art movement.Rivers early developed an interest in jazz, and after briefly serving in the army during World War II he studied composition at the Juilliard School of Music. One of his classmates there was Miles Davis (Davis, Miles), who introduced him to other jazz musicians, and Rivers was soon touring the United States with different groups as a jazz saxophonist. In 1945, however, he was given a book on modern art and quickly discovered he had a natural talent for painting. From 1947 to 1948 he studied in the New York City and Provincetown, Massachusetts, school of the prominent Abstract Expressionist Hans Hofmann (Hofmann, Hans). Rivers later studied at New York University College, graduating in 1951. His early paintings were exhibited in New York City in 1949.Rivers's first major work was The Burial (1951), a grim depiction of his grandmother's funeral, based on the Burial at Ornans by Gustave Courbet (Courbet, Gustave). His Washington Crossing the Delaware (1953) was based on the familiar work by a 19th-century American painter, Emanuel Leutze (Leutze, Emanuel Gottlieb). Though criticized for its banal subject matter and mixture of styles, the painting nonetheless attracted widespread attention. From 1951 to 1957 he made a series of portraits of his mother-in-law, of which the harshly realistic Double Portrait of Berdie (1955) is perhaps best known.Rivers's works were characterized by competent draftsmanship, a fine sense of colour, and the frequent use of complex, fragmentary, and multiple views. Beginning in 1961, commercial images, such as cigarette packages, figured prominently in his pictures, which, after 1963, frequently had elements of collage, construction, and sculpture. A particularly elaborate example of such mixed-media works was The History of the Russian Revolution: From Marx to Mayakovsky (1965), which had some 30 individual paintings and included, among other objects, a machine gun. His autobiography, What Did I Do? (cowritten with Arnold Weinstein), was published in 1992.* * *
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