Sidney and Lois Eskenazi Museum of Art

About this Work

Combining an improvisational working method with a return to narrative subject matter, Larry Rivers provides an aesthetic bridge between Abstract Expressionism and Pop art. Among his favorite sources were “campy” history paintings and the mass media. A photograph of the last survivor of the Civil War in Life magazine (May 11, 1959) inspired a series of images exploring life, death, war, and heroism. Defining himself as both an artist and a political man, Rivers saw historical themes as a way of exposing hypocrisy and of illuminating contemporary issues—such as the Vietnam War. The fact that the man in the original photograph (Walter Williams) was revealed as a fraud also raises questions about truth in media, history, art, and politics. By using garish, unconventional colors, Rivers alters reality and challenges us to rethink our preconceptions.