Author Description

The photographs that fill the endpapers of this 50-year retrospective show Larry Rivers between takes of Pull My Daisy with Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg; then leaning against a car with a Speedo-wearing Frank O'Hara; posing thoughtfully with Kenneth Koch; and playing sax at the Blue Bird. Facsimiles of creased and dog-eared review clippings include midcentury New York Times, Herald Tribune and ArtNews raves, and a 1997 Times piece crediting Rivers with bringing back "handmade" art. A soft-edged aesthetic permeates his work, never contradicting the symmetry and glamour that led to the burst of late twentieth century and early twenty-first century high-fashion illustration that closes the book.