Larry Rivers

Larry Rivers was born and raised in New York. He began painting in 1945 after a brief career as a jazz saxophonist and studied at the Hans Hoffman school from 1947-48. In the early 60’s, Rivers lived in the famous Hotel Chelsea where he mingled with many other important artists, musicians, and poets. Known by many as the grandfather of pop art, Rivers explored everyday objects and American popular culture in his non-objective non-narrative paintings. In 1955 Rivers’ work gained traction after he was one of eleven New York artists included in the opening exhibition of Terrain Gallery. In 1965 he had his first retrospective, which traveled to five major American museums. The last work he contributed to the exhibition, The History of the Russian Revolution, is on permanent display at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden at the National Gallery in Washington, DC. His work is included in the collections of the Guggenheim Museum, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Tate Gallery amongst many other prominent institutions.