Press Releases

September 19, 2002
Friends Remember Artist Larry Rivers at Southampton College

Screening of Personal Documentary to Follow

Contact:
Darren Johnson
(631) 287 8313
Fax: (631) 283 4081

A "Tribute to Larry Rivers," the renowned artist from Southampton who recently died, will be held at Southampton College on Saturday, October 5 at 7 p.m. in Duke Lecture Hall.

Friends of the artist will offer remembrances, joined by award-winning documentarian Lana Jokel, who will screen her 1994 biography "Larry Rivers " Public and Private." The event is free and open to the public. For further information, contact (631) 287-8143.

The tribute is coordinated by Southampton College Film Professor John Reilly, who also heads the College's burgeoning film program. He said of Jokel's documentary, "This is a wonderful portrait of Larry Rivers by a person he knew well and trusted as a friend. It is a very creative film."

Larry Rivers was one of the 20th century's premier renaissance men. Born in 1923 in the Bronx as Larry Grossberg, Rivers began a musical career as a saxophonist in the 1940s in various jazz bands in the New York area and studied at Julliard and NYU. He befriended artists including Jackson Pollock, Andy Warhol and Willem de Koonig. In 1953, his fine-arts career was launched with his painting "Washington Crossing the Delaware," and Rivers quickly became a top name in the pop-art movement. He also collaborated with the poet Kenneth Koch on the collection of picture-poems "New York 1959-1960." Rivers died on August 14 in Southampton.

"Larry Rivers was first introduced to me in the early 1970s by Andy Warhol. Since then I have made documentaries on both of them," said Jokel, who began her career with the acclaimed filmmaking team of Leacock " Pennebaker. "I came to know Larry the artist, musician, writer, friend and family man. Larry, of versatile talents and multiple interests, was always of strong opinions and single-mindedness. His life was full of exploration, fascination and controversy. My film sheds light on a unique personality and a true artist."