Larry Rivers was born in the Bronx, New York. Born as Yitzrok Loiza Grossberg, he later went by Larry Rivers after he and his band were introduced as “Larry Rivers and the Mudcats” while performing at a bar in New York City. Rivers, who played the saxophone, studied at the Juillard School of Music. It was here where he befriended Miles Davis, who was attending the school at the same time. In 1945, Rivers began to paint, and studied at the Hans Hofman School from 1947-48. Afterwards he attended New York University. Rivers, who was known for intergrating everday objects of American pop culture into artwork. Often referred to as the “Grandfather” of Pop art, Rivers was one of the first artists to combine non-objective, non-narrative art with narrative and objective abstraction.