from his other work. He completed a
commissioned cover for the New York
"Erasing the Past"
Times Magazine
— using concentration camp subjects,
and went on to express his personal
feelings about the Holocaust and sur-
vivors.
"I just did something that has to do
with a German painter who spent 10
years in Brussels prior to his trip to
Auschwitz," said Rivers.
"I did two paintings based on his
own painting of himself holding up an
identity card and looking very
harassed, but I substituted my own
portrait for his face.
"That's probably what many Jews
of my generation are thinking. Just by
some sort of luck, we didn't end up in
a concentration camp."
Earlier works that have been shown
at the Jewish Museum in New York
include The Story of Jews and The
History of the Russian Revolution: From
Marx to Mayakovsky.
Research for the New York Times
cover sparked an interest in the writ-
ings of Primo Levi and resulted in a
set of large portraits of the author.
"I go through all sorts of feelings
with every painting that I do, but
there are certain
thoughts I have with
those that have to do
with having experienced
what Jews experience,"
he said.
"I think of myself as
rather funny and see the
absurdity in things, but
suddenly, I get into the
Jewish subject and con-
sider that to be my seri-
ous subject."

—

between the haute
couture clothes and
the vibrant plumage
make for striking
images, said Ray
Fleming.
"Not only is he an
excellent painter,
Rivers also is an
excellent draftsman.
He has studied the
masters, and the skill
shows in his work."
Past, and perhaps
legendary, projects
mix high and low
cultural subjects.
"I go all over the place," said
,-'Rivers, who won $32,000 on TV's
"The $64,000 Question" and wrote
his autobiography, What Did I Do?,
with Arnold Weinstein.
Rivers, who was born in the Bronx
and changed his name from Larry
Grosberg, began performing as a jazz
saxophonist in 1940. He studied
music theory and composition at
Juilliard and turned to painting in
7- 1944, after a jazz musician showed
him a rendering of a bass fiddle by
Georges Braque.
The musician studied art at New
York University and had his first one-
man exhibit in 1949. After living in
Paris for almost a year, he became con-

❑

Top: Larry Rivers: From the
absurd to the serious.

Above: From Rivers' 'Art and
the Artist" series: "Picasso at the
Easeh" pencil on paper, 1992.

Right: A drawing by Rivers
titled "Sam Holding Bubba
II," colored pencil and pencil
on paper, 1993.

sumed with painting while continuing
with jazz engagements.
His artistry made its way into com-
mercial projects as well as aesthetic
ones, and his subjects have ranged
from historical figures to celebrities of
the times.
Rivers often uses other artists'

famous paintings as a starting point
for his own images. In 1988, for
example, he completed a series of large
versions of Duchamp's Nude
Descending a Staircase with the title
"75 Years Later."
The artist considers his paintings
with Jewish themes as very different

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1998

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