Growing 1981 Larry Rivers 'link' Online

Currently, Growing (1981) resides in a private collection in New York, though it was exhibited as part of the Larry Rivers: The Last Decade retrospective at the Jewish Museum (then traveling to the Corcoran Gallery) in the mid-1990s. If you are attempting to locate this piece for academic study, your best resource is the Larry Rivers Foundation archives. The work is rarely traded, as it is considered a crown jewel of his late period.

Growing is not a pleasant picture. It is a necessary one. It asks the viewer: Are you growing, or are you just getting older? And it refuses to answer the question for you. growing 1981 larry rivers

: The daughters formally requested that the materials be removed from the public archive to protect their privacy. Resolution Currently, Growing (1981) resides in a private collection

Rivers is asking a radical question:

In 1981, Rivers was 58 years old and at the height of his career. He continued to experiment with various mediums, including painting, sculpture, and printmaking. This year marked a period of significant growth and innovation for the artist. Growing is not a pleasant picture

To understand Growing , one must remember the state of the art world in 1981. Neo-Expressionism was beginning to boil over in Germany and Italy (Baselitz, Kiefer, Chia), while in New York, the graffiti-inspired work of Jean-Michel Basquiat and Keith Haring was crashing the gallery scene. Minimalism had run its course.