Larry Rivers

Larry Rivers was born Yitzroch Loiza Grossberg in New York, and changed his name while a teenager. Interested in jazz as a youth, Rivers played saxophone and studied music at The Julliard School. Following a brief period of service in World War II, Rivers began to paint at the encouragement of his friends. He studied with Hans Hofmann in the late 1940s and chose to apply his skills in draftsmanship to works depicting naturalistic subject matter with loose, flowing brushstrokes. 

Rivers' work prefigured many of the concepts pursued by 1960s Pop artists; he incorporated items from mass media and commercial culture into his works, as well as unusual materials and found objects. Beginning in the 1970s, Rivers used airbrushing, stenciling, printmaking, and assemblage in his art. In 1977, Rivers exhibited his work at the documenta VI in Kassel, Germany, and had several retrospectives, including exhibitions at the Kunsthalle in Munich, the Stattliche Kunsthalle in Berlin, the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., and the Whitney Museum of Art in New York.