.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
Positioned between Pop and Abstract Expressionism—the two dominant movements in post-war American art—Larry Rivers’ works offers a flavor of both. Here, Night Painting and Maxine provides a glimpse into the artist’s personal realm through this evolving style. In 1956, Rivers’ works were exhibited at the “Twelve Americans” show, a major exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art organized by Alfred Barr, along with works by Franz Kline, Philip Guston and Grace Hartigan. However, Rivers, like Willem de Kooning had rediscovered the power of figuration in his compositions and often borrowed from famous paintings, appropriating well known imageries in his works. Stylistically, Night Painting and Maxine evokes Picasso’s Three Women at the Spring, 1921, and Dance, 1910, by Matisse. The subject matter of night painting resonates with van Gogh’s Starry Night, 1889, and James A. M. Whitslers’ Nocturne series.
In this painting, the reclining figure is Maxine, Rivers’ girlfriend at the time. The painting is abstract, yet at the same time, figurative. It merges the two genres, yet rests somewhere in between. The brushstrokes of the night ambience conveys the artistic expression and the moment of spontaneity of the Abstract Expressionist genius, embodying the Greenbergian ideal of a flat modern painting. However, the reclining pose of the roughly sketched nude is most identifiable evokes Picasso and Matisse, and marks a return to figuration. Rivers often played with the idea of motion pictures and attempted to record the movements in his paintings. In Night Painting and Maxine, the Maxine’s moving limbs and the objects in motion behind the windows suggest a shifting sense of movement with its blurred lines and brushstrokes. Like Robert Rauschenberg, Rivers was a vanguard of Pop Art at the height of Abstract Expressionism. He was one of the first artists to explore the possibilities in the figurations in the post-war America in the era of Clement Greenberg. This painting marks the important transition between the two movements and a precursor to the Rivers’ increasingly figurative later works.
In this painting, the reclining figure is Maxine, Rivers’ girlfriend at the time. The painting is abstract, yet at the same time, figurative. It merges the two genres, yet rests somewhere in between. The brushstrokes of the night ambience conveys the artistic expression and the moment of spontaneity of the Abstract Expressionist genius, embodying the Greenbergian ideal of a flat modern painting. However, the reclining pose of the roughly sketched nude is most identifiable evokes Picasso and Matisse, and marks a return to figuration. Rivers often played with the idea of motion pictures and attempted to record the movements in his paintings. In Night Painting and Maxine, the Maxine’s moving limbs and the objects in motion behind the windows suggest a shifting sense of movement with its blurred lines and brushstrokes. Like Robert Rauschenberg, Rivers was a vanguard of Pop Art at the height of Abstract Expressionism. He was one of the first artists to explore the possibilities in the figurations in the post-war America in the era of Clement Greenberg. This painting marks the important transition between the two movements and a precursor to the Rivers’ increasingly figurative later works.