The 2010 legal proceedings and settlements involving the NYU archive.
The film was the culmination of a five-year project beginning in the mid-1970s. During this time, Rivers filmed his adolescent daughters, Gwynne and Emma, every six months to document their physical development.
The project remains a significant point of discussion regarding the responsibilities of artists toward their subjects and the legal protections afforded to children in the context of private and professional filming. Portrait of the Artist as Creep - Glasstire growing 1981 larry rivers
Searching for "growing 1981 Larry Rivers" is not simply a query about a painting; it is an inquiry into how we age. In this monumental work, Larry Rivers took a universal verb—"growing"—and twisted it until it bled irony. He showed us that to grow is to accumulate loss. To grow is to watch your children surpass you. To grow is to watch the plant wither even as it reaches for the sun.
A plant "growing" is usually a sign of health. But Rivers’ plant looks exhausted. It is growing because it has no choice. The title is ironic. This is not a springtime daffodil; this is a late-summer weed that refuses to die. The 2010 legal proceedings and settlements involving the
Growing (1981) stands as a quintessential representation of Rivers' mature style. Measuring on a grand scale, the artwork demands physical presence from the viewer, mirroring the outsized personality of Rivers himself. The Fragmented Narrative
To understand Growing , we must first understand the mind that created it. Larry Rivers, born Yitzroch Loiza Grossberg in the Bronx in 1923, was a force of nature. He was a jazz saxophonist who performed with the likes of Charlie Parker before turning to painting. He is widely celebrated as the "Godfather" of Pop Art for his radical decision to merge the emotional, vigorous brushstrokes of Abstract Expressionism with narrative, recognizable, and often commercial imagery in the 1950s, paving the way for Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein. His work, often described as a hybrid of representational abstract expressionism, consistently pushed formal boundaries. However, Rivers was as famous for his art as he was for his provocative, unabashedly "bad boy" persona, which included drug use, bisexuality, and an unquenchable desire to shatter societal taboos. A new documentary described him as a "complex character who never shied away from saying or doing the uncomfortable thing". It was within this combustible mix of artistic ambition and personal provocation that Growing was conceived. The project remains a significant point of discussion
This is Rivers at his most fluent. The influence of Willem de Kooning and the New York School is unmistakable—the push-and-pull of figure and ground, the aggressive yet lyrical mark-making. Yet Rivers adds a Pop-era coolness: the plant is treated almost like a commercial illustration that has been deliberately roughened and rethought. The tension between graphic clarity and painterly chaos gives Growing its unsettled, compelling energy.