Growing 1981 Larry Rivers Jun 2026

: One of the subjects, Emma Tamburlini, has publicly condemned the film, describing it as "child pornography" and stating that the process contributed to her developing anorexia as a teenager. The 1981 Painting

Growing is a mixed-media work on canvas, typical of Rivers’ method of combining oil paint, charcoal, and sometimes collage elements. At first glance, the composition is dominated by organic, phallic-like vertical forms that rise from a dark, undulating earth. These forms—reminiscent of stalks, fungi, or even unrolled scrolls of paper—are rendered in muted greens, ochres, and fleshy pinks. The brushwork is loose and gestural, a clear debt to his Abstract Expressionist training under Hans Hofmann. However, unlike a purely abstract painting, Growing contains fractured figurative elements: a disembodied hand reaching upward, a suggestion of a facial profile near the lower right quadrant, and what appears to be a window or frame within the canvas.

"Growing" (1981): Larry Rivers, Controversy, and the Ethics of Artistic Documentation growing 1981 larry rivers

Understanding the "Growing" film requires understanding the professional triumph that surrounded Rivers at the time. In 1981, while his daughter’s trauma was being finalized on film, the art world was celebrating his career.

The project, which spanned from 1976 to 1981, involved Rivers filming the physical development of his two daughters. This five-year endeavor was intended as an artistic examination of the transition from childhood to adolescence, but it eventually became a source of significant ethical and legal debate. The Archival Controversy and NYU : One of the subjects, Emma Tamburlini, has

Further reading suggestions (not exhaustive): monographs on Rivers, catalogues raisonnés, and exhibition catalogues from the 1970s–90s provide deeper archival and pictorial context.

The children involved have characterized the work not as a collaborative artistic endeavor, but as a source of lasting distress and a violation of their privacy. Controversy and Legacy These forms—reminiscent of stalks, fungi, or even unrolled

: The Foundation continues to preserve the film, arguing it is essential "art in itself" and vital context for the 1981 painting, despite Emma's requests for the footage to be destroyed. Larry Rivers' other controversial family portraits or his role in the Larry Rivers Paintings, Bio, Ideas - The Art Story

Furthermore, the painting engages with the theme of mortality. By 1981, Rivers had outlived many of his peers (Jackson Pollock, Frank O’Hara, Willem de Kooning was still alive but declining). The fungal, slightly morbid quality of the stalks—some appear to be wilting even as others grow—suggests a memento mori. Growth implies decay; creation implies destruction. This dualism is central to understanding Rivers’ late work: he refuses the purely heroic or purely nihilistic stance.

He stopped looking at the news and started looking at his windowsill. By turning the mundane into the monumental, he predicted the 1990s return of intimate, figurative painting (Lucian Freud, Alice Neel). He proved that you don't need a history book to make history; you just need a plant, a canvas, and the courage to see yourself in its struggle.