Overview
Letters of the American painter and musician Larry Rivers to Margaret Harmsworth McCulloch with other correspondence and a photograph.
Dates
- Creation: 1950-1959
Language of Materials
Materials in English.
Conditions Governing Access
There are no restrictions on physical access to this material.
Extent
.04 linear feet (1 folder)Includes letters to Margaret Harmsworth McCulloch (one with a sketch of Nell Blaine) and to her father, Desmond Harmsworth, a postcard with clipping from Nell Blaine to Rivers, a photograph of one of Rivers's paintings, and miscellaneous other papers.
Letters are autograph manuscript unless otherwise noted.
Biographical / Historical
Larry Rivers was born Yitzhok Loiza Grossberg to Russian-Jewish parents in 1923 (sometimes claimed to be 1925) in the Bronx, New York, changing his name to Larry Rivers in 1940 after being introduced as "Larry Rivers and the Mudcats" performing at a local pub. From 1940-1945 he worked as a jazz saxophonist in New York City; he studied at the Juilliard School of Music in 1945-1946. Rivers took up painting in 1945 and studied at the Hans Hofmann School from 1947–1948 at the encouragement of Nell Blaine. Rivers embarked on a trip to Paris in 1950 to write poetry and study paintings in the Louvre; Blaine joined him after a few weeks, renting a studio in order to paint. He went on to become a filmmaker and occasional actor and became associated with Pop Art and the New York School. Rivers died in 2002.
Margaret Harmsworth McCulloch was a fellow painter and sculptor living in Paris and the daughter of Desmond Harmsworth, an artist and publisher.
Arrangement
Arranged alphabetically by author, then chronologically.
Physical Location
f
Immediate Source of Acquisition
2010M-85. Purchased with funds from the Amy Lowell Trust; received: 2011 April 11.
Processing Information
Processed by: Melanie Wisner
- Title
- Rivers, Larry, 1925-2002. Larry Rivers papers, 1950-1959: Guide.
- Author
- Houghton Library, Harvard College Library
- Description rules
- dacs
- Language of description
- und
- EAD ID
- hou02167
Repository Details
Part of the Houghton Library Repository
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