When Emma Tamburlini was 11 years old, her father, the late Pop artist Larry Rivers, began videotaping her and her sister every six months, naked or topless, and talking about their budding breasts. He edited the footage into a 45-minute film about his daughters called “Growing.” Rivers planned to show “Growing” as part of an exhibition, but his wife, Clarice, who appears in the film with his other teenage daughter, Gwynne, stopped him. At 16 years old, Emma became anorexic. “It wrecked a lot of my life actually,” she says of her father’s filming.
Today, Emma Tamburlini is 43 years old and attempting to stop New York University from including “Growing” in an archive of her father’s artwork. NYU purchased all of Larry Rivers’ work from the Larry Rivers Foundation, which has refused in the past to destroy the tapes at Emma’s request. After buying the archive from the Larry Rivers Foundation for an undisclosed price, NYU has only pledged to keep “Growing” private throughout the daughters’ lifetimes but is still discussing how the matter should be handled. Emma Tamburlini and her mother believe the films should be returned to the family. Keep reading »
