Portrait of Berdie, Number II
Rivers was heralded by Clement Greenberg as an “amazing beginner. . . a better composer of pictures than was Bonnard himself. . .” at his first showing at Jane Street Gallery in New York in 1949. As this portrait of his mother-in-law, Berdie Burger, shows, he remained under the thrall of French painters like Pierre Bonnard and Édouard Vuillard. A student of Hans Hofmann and William Baziotes, Rivers was retrospectively cast by critics in the 1960s as a Pop artist. The characterization did not quite fit, since he never painted in the pseudo-mechanical style of Andy Warhol or Roy Lichtenstein.
Artwork Details
- Title: Portrait of Berdie, Number II
- Artist: Larry Rivers (American, Bronx, New York 1923–2002 Southampton, New York)
- Date: 1953
- Medium: Oil on canvas
- Dimensions: 82 1/8 × 56 1/8 in. (208.6 × 142.6 cm)
- Classification: Paintings
- Credit Line: The Muriel Kallis Steinberg Newman Collection, Gift of Muriel Kallis Newman, 2006
- Object Number: 2006.32.53
- Curatorial Department: Modern and Contemporary Art
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