This screenprint is from the legendary New York Collection for Stockholm portfolio, issued to commemorate the collection of paintings and sculpture by top New York artists of the 1960s, assembled by Hultén and Klüver for the Moderna Museet Museum in Stockholm. The roster of artists included is a who's who's of the New York art world during one of its most influential decades: Lee Bontecou, John Chamberlain, Walter De Maria, Jim Dine, Mark Di Suvero, Dan Flavin, Red Grooms, Hans Haacke, Donald Judd, Elsworth Kelly, Sol Lewitt, Roy Lichtenstein, Louise Nevelson, Kenneth Noland, Claes Oldenburg, Nam June Paik, Robert Rauschenberg, Larry Rivers, James Rosenquist, George Segal, Richard Serra, Cy Twombly, Andy Warhol, and others.
One of the reasons this print is so uncommon, even though it was published in an edition of 300, is that the other editions are in the permanent collections of major museums and public institutions worldwide, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Moderna Museet, the Walker Art Center, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Dayton Art Institute, the Frost Art Museum,the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, the San Diego Museum of Art, the Princeton University Art Museum, the Pierpoint Morgan Library, and the Albertina Museum - to name only a few.
This silkscreen is in mint condition, sold in its original portfolio sleeve (shown) made of Cranes Bond Extra No. 1 quality with Larry Rivers' name in block letters stamped in front. It also comes with a copy of the colophon page of the entire portfolio as provenance.
During the course of his career, American Pop artist Larry Rivers was also a jazz musician, writer, and filmmaker. His painting, primarily figurative, combined his origins in "action painting" with an often witty use of historical and pop icons.
Rivers initially hoped to make it as a musician, studying piano, and later saxophone, during his formative years. From 1940 to 1942 he performed with various jazz bands, but interrupted his musical career by enlisting in the U.S. Army Air Corps. His military service was cut short by a nervous disorder which forced him to return to civilian life. He resumed his musical career and studied at the Juilliard School of Music in 1944 and 1945. Though he continued to support himself as a musician, Rivers' interest in painting grew. He studied with Nell Blaine in 1946 and with abstractionist Hans Hofmann in 1947 and 1948. Though teacher and pupil frequently clashed, Hofmann made art seem "glamorous" to Rivers, and this possibility sowed the seeds of his transition from professional musician to painter.
In 1948 Rivers studied art at New York University. with William Baziotes (his teacher), Willem de Kooning, and other abstract expressionist pioneers. He would also closely follow the Pop Art movement, and his work would reflect a synthesis of both trends. During the early 1960s Rivers lived in the Hotel Chelsea, notable for its artistic residents such as Bob Dylan, Janis Joplin, Leonard Cohen, Arthur C. Clarke, Dylan Thomas, Sid Vicious and multiple people associated with Andy Warhol's Factory. In 1965 Rivers had his first comprehensive retrospective in five important American museums. His final work for the exhibition was The History of the Russian Revolution, which was later on extended permanent display at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, DC. A major retrospective of Rivers work was held in 2002 at the Corcoran Museum of Art.
