Long before the advent of today’s gay and lesbian movement there were many examples of art—paintings, sculptures, water colors, prints and photographs—that acknowledged a variety of sexual identities. This exhibition features artists and sitters with a range of identities, from exclusively same-sex to exclusively heterosexual.

“Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture” will consider such themes as the role of sexual difference in depicting modern Americans, how artists have explored the definition of sexuality and gender, how major themes in modern art—especially abstraction—were influenced by this form of marginalization and how art reflected society’s changing attitudes.

“The exhibition is titled, ‘Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture’ because those with different sexual identities—who are of, but not fully a part of, the society they portrayed—occupied a position of influential marginality,” said David C. Ward, co-curator of the exhibition and National Portrait Gallery historian. “From this vantage point they crafted innovative and revolutionary ways of painting portraits. Society’s attempt to forbid them forced them to resist by developing new visual ways to code, disguise and express their subjects’ identities—and also their own.”

The installation begins with late 19th-century works by Thomas Eakins and John Singer Sargent and charts 20th-century portraiture with 105 major works by masters, including Romaine Brooks, George Bellows, Marsden Hartley and Georgia O’Keeffe. It continues through the postwar period with works by Larry Rivers, Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg, Agnes Martin and Andy Warhol. The exhibition addresses the impact of the Stonewall Riots of 1969, the AIDS epidemic and the advent of postmodernist attention to identities, indicating how portraiture repeatedly negotiated seismic shifts in American culture and society.

“Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture” continues through to the end of the 20th century with major works by artists such as Keith Haring, Glenn Ligon, Nan Goldin, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, David Wojnarowicz and Catherine Opie.

The Tibor de Nagy Gallery marks its 60th anniversary with TIBOR DE NAGY GALLERY PAINTERS AND POETS, an exhibition celebrating the gallery’s pivotal role in launching the New York School of Poets and fostering a new collaborative ethos among poets and painters in post-War New York. The exhibition focuses on the gallery’s first two decades, the 1950s and ‘60s, when its vibrant, salon-like atmosphere and director John Bernard Myers’ passion for both art and poetry gave birth to these unique partnerships. The show features paintings by Larry Rivers, Helen Frankenthaler, Alfred Leslie, Trevor Winkfield, Nell Blaine, Joe Brainard, Grace Hartigan, Joan Mitchell, Jane Freilicher and Fairfield Porter; poetry collections published by the gallery’s imprint, Tibor de Nagy Editions, and featuring work by Frank O’Hara, Kenneth Koch, James Schuyler, John Ashbery, Barbara Guest and others, with illustrations by Tibor de Nagy artists; photographs and films by Rudy Burckhardt; letters, announcement cards and other ephemera; and archival photographs of leading cultural figures of the day by John Gruen and Fred McDarrah.

Many years after excluding Larry Rivers from his groundbreaking 1970 exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Henry Geldzahler conceded that he made a mistake and should have included Rivers in the exhibit. In a late 80’s televised interview with Rivers, Geldzahler talks about leaving Rivers out of the exhibit, “ … In truth it was a confusion in part created by your independence… I see now that (the 1953 painting) ‘Washington Crossing the Delaware’ changed the way and entire generation thought about what was allowable subject matter.”

In his ’92 autobiography “What Did I Do?” Rivers says, “The idea of Larry Rivers was born with Washington Crossing the Delaware.”

"Drawn entirely from the MoMA’s collection, “Abstract Expressionist New York” underscores the achievements of a generation that catapulted New York City to the center of the international art world during the 1950's, and left as its legacy some of the twentieth century’s greatest masterpieces. Galleries on the fourth floor present Abstract Expressionist paintings, sculptures, prints, drawings, photographs, films, and archival materials in a display subtitled The Big Picture, marking the first time in the history of the new Museum building that a full floor has been devoted to a single theme.”

Larry’s inclusion in this exhibition is an affirming moment for the Foundations determined efforts to reinvigorate interest in Rivers’ brilliant and influential legacy. We encourage everyone to take advantage of this unique opportunity to see this masterpiece, acquired by the MoMA in 1955.

Larry purposefully documented his life and work. The papers are voluminous—250 cubic feet of correspondence, manuscripts, essays, lectures, eulogies, journals, interviews, sketches, photographs, and more than 500 hours of moving image that includes documentaries, interviews with fellow artists and performers, and feature films. There is also a significant collection of preparatory documents for Larry's work.

Among the highlights is Larry's correspondence over many years with poet Frank O'Hara and art dealer and publisher John Bernard Meyers.

Why NYU Libraries?

From among the number of cultural institutions interested in acquiring the Larry Rivers Papers, the Foundation chose NYU for several reasons. NYU is Larry's alma mater (BA, Art Education, 1951) and Greenwich Village was the environment in which he became an artist and forged the connections reflected in his papers.

Most significantly, NYU’s brilliant faculty will foster new insight into Larry's centrality to the New York art scene, deepen understanding of his artistic and literary influence, and introduce him to a succession of new audiences. We are delighted that NYU Libraries will provide the opportunity for this material to do what Larry expected all of his work to do: generate new dialogue and new ideas.

With its archival and preservation experts in all media, NYU Libraries has the expertise to process the papers and make them accessible. They have undertaken a fundraising campaign to support this labor intensive and very specialized work.

The Rivers papers are an organic fit with the collections of NYU's Fales Library, which in the 1960s began archiving material from the New York art world. The Downtown Collection of avant-garde art, performance, music and literature, the most heavily used collection in Fales Library, documents the vitality, energy and originality of New York artists from Larry’s era to the present day.