as part of its archive and returned the materials to the Foundation. Current Status:
. This project has become a central point of debate regarding the boundaries between art, privacy, and exploitation. Overview of the Series 1976 and 1981 , Rivers filmed his two adolescent daughters, Emma Tamburlini Gwynne Rivers , at six-month intervals.
In 1976, Larry Rivers began using a portable camera to chronicle his daughters' transition into adulthood. Over five years, he recorded bi-annual sessions focused on their physical growth and maturation. During these sessions, Rivers engaged his daughters in dialogue, asking them to describe their psychological and emotional responses to their changing bodies and their emerging identities. The 1981 Edit and Intended Exhibition
Rivers is asking a radical question:
"Growing" was not a spontaneous event but a systematic, five-year documentary project. Starting in , when each of his daughters — Gwynne Rivers and Emma Tamburlini — was about 11 years old, Rivers filmed them at six-month intervals. He continued this process until 1981, when his younger daughter Emma reached 16 years old.
Here is what the eye encounters:
, the footage often shows them topless or naked while Rivers asks them questions about their changing bodies and sexuality. Intent vs. Reality: growing 1981 larry rivers
: The work is often cited as an example of Rivers' tendency to blur the lines between his personal life and his art, often at the expense of those closest to him.
: 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
Its influence can be seen in the work of later artists like John Currin (in the distorted flesh tones) and even in the melancholic self-portraits of Alice Neel, though Neel was Rivers’ contemporary. What makes Growing unique is its refusal to be beautiful. It is ugly in the way that a biopsy is ugly—revealing the truth beneath the skin. as part of its archive and returned the
Using film allowed Rivers to document the ephemeral nature of growth, a theme that has long occupied artists, but his approach was intimate, topless, and frequently full-frontal nude. 2. Artistic Intentions: Documentation vs. Exploitation
NYU requested that the Larry Rivers Foundation remove the Growing series from the acquisition. Artforum reported that the university returned the films to the estate, citing concerns over the subjects' privacy and the ethics of the documentation. Artistic Freedom vs. Personal Privacy
Beginning in 1976, Rivers set out to document the physical and psychological changes of his two adolescent daughters, Gwynne and Emma, as they navigated puberty. Twice a year for five years, he filmed them at his home, often asking them to appear topless or entirely naked. The Outcome of the Project Overview of the Series 1976 and 1981 ,
Rivers originally intended for the film to be played in a continuous loop during a 1981 exhibition of his paintings. However, he was dissuaded by the girls' mother, Clarice Rivers , and the footage remained unexhibited during his lifetime. The Modern Controversy The series resurfaced in 2010 when New York University (NYU) was in the process of purchasing Rivers' archive from the Larry Rivers Foundation Daughters' Stance:
While the project was framed as an artistic study of maturation, the lack of privacy and the nature of the parent-child dynamic in a professional filming context raised immediate ethical questions regarding consent and the boundaries of artistic license. 3. Storage and Institutional Response