[1][3] Larry Rivers was born as Yitzroch Loiza Grossberg in the Bronx, New York, in the family of Jewish immigrants from Ukraine.

[6] He was a pop artist of the New York School, reproducing everyday objects of American popular culture as art.

"[7] During the early 1960s Rivers lived in Manhattan's Hotel Chelsea, notable for its artistic residents such as Bob Dylan, Janis Joplin, Leonard Cohen, Arthur C. Clarke, Dylan Thomas, Sid Vicious and multiple people associated with Andy Warhol's Factory and where he brought several of his French nouveau réalistes friends like Yves Klein who wrote there in April 1961 his Manifeste de l'hôtel Chelsea, Arman, Martial Raysse, Jean Tinguely, Niki de Saint-Phalle, Christo, Daniel Spoerri or Alain Jacquet, several of whom, like Rivers, left some pieces of art in the lobby of the hotel for payment of their rooms.

[citation needed] His final work for the exhibition was The History of the Russian Revolution, which was later on extended permanent display at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, DC.

[9] In 1971, he curated Some American History at the Institute for the Arts at Rice University in Houston, where his own work was exhibited alongside that of African-American artists Ellsworth Ausby, Peter Bradley, Frank Bowling, Daniel LaRue Johnson, Joe Overstreet, and William T.

[10] The exhibition, which intended to focus on violence against African-Americans, was widely criticized by national press along with the black artists whose work was shown, many of whom felt that Rivers' curation focused on his own experiences as a non-black person instead of uplifting and highlighting the perspectives of the black artists who had experienced the racism the show was supposed to foreground.

[citation needed] Larry Rivers was born in the Bronx to Samuel and Sonya Grossberg, Jewish immigrants from Ukraine.

[1] Rivers also adopted Joseph, Berger's son from a previous relationship, and reared both children after the couple divorced.