<i>The Last Civil War Veteran</i>
Authors: Thomas B. Cole
Journal: JAMA (2015)

T he Last Civil War Veteran is a 1961 painting by the American artist Larry Rivers (1923-2002) of a frail old man resting quietly under the rival emblems of the AmericanCivilWar. Thebackdropof banners overwhelms the figure of the man whose features are fading into the sheets. The compositionwas basedon aLifemagazine photographof Walter Williams, who was believed to be the last surviving veteranof theCivilWar.Rivers chose this subject for his paintingbecausehewas intriguedbymass-circulation imagery and contemporary perspectives on historical events. He was not somucha storyteller as anobserverof theways that stories are told. Rivers first became interested in the subject of a lost generation of soldiers when he painted a picture of the next-to-lastConfederateveteran,whowasreportedtohavedied at the age of 112 on St Patrick’s Day in 1959. The Confederate soldier’s passing left Walter Williams as the last known Civil War veteran, but after Williams died, a search of official records indicated that he was too young to have served in the war.Hewasburiedwithhonors anyway, and toRivers, the lack of authenticitymade the story all themore interesting. Rivers was born in the New York borough of the Bronx on August 17, 1923. His parents were Jewish immigrants from the Ukraine.Asaboyhe learnedtoplay thesaxophonewell enough toperformat resorthotels, andafterhighschoolheplayedprofessionally in jazznightclubs. In1940hechangedhisbirthname, Yitzroch Grossberg, to Larry Rivers. With disability benefits earned fromhis service in theUnitedStatesArmyAirCorps,he wasable to studymusic theoryandcompositionat the Juilliard School of Music. In 1945, at the suggestion of a friend, the Americanpainter JaneFreilicher, Rivers tookuppainting, and from 1947 to 1948 he studied at the Hans Hofmann School of FineArts.Rivers’ natural inclinationwas to includehuman figures inhis compositions, although figurativepaintingwasout of fashionat the time.Headmired the jagged figuresofwomen and men by one of the few painters making nonrepresentational art, the Dutch American innovatorWillemdeKooning. Rivers’ best-known work of the early 1950s was Washington Crossing the Delaware, a reinvention of the classical painting by the German American artist Emanuel Gottlieb Leutze. In Luetze’s rendition of the surprise attack of the Continental ArmyonBritishmercenary forces during theAmericanRevolutionary War, General Washington stands nobly in the bow of an overloaded boat as his men fend off blocks of river ice. Rivers thought Luetze’s painting was an unrealistic piece of Napoleonic hero-worship, so he reinterpreted the event as a washed-out tableau of a general and his army on a bleak winter day. He wasn’t mocking the story, only the way it had been depicted. ManyofRivers’ contemporaries considerednarrativematerial of anykind,whetherpompousor facetious, tobe incompatible with modern aesthetics of pictorial art, but others appreciated Rivers’ ironic perspective. Established painters had been taking themselves seriously for so long that critics and other viewers were primed for a reaction. Rivers became known for his camp sensibility and for re-envisioning classical paintings in contemporary contexts. For amajor painting, Riverswouldmake several preliminarydrawings, transfer the final drawing to a canvas, and apply paint in thin washes to allow the drawing to show through. This was in keepingwith a mid-century practice of leaving traces, so that each paintingwas the record of its own formation. Alongwith historical images, Rivers used signage as subject matter, such as cigarettepacks and themenuathis favoriteGreenwichVillage tavern. Ready-made images appealed to him because they were flat, recognizable, and ubiquitous. His 1963 composition DutchMaster andCigarsmergedhis interests in history paintings andadvertising copybyacknowledging the ironyofusing fine art as mere illustration. A box of Dutch Masters Cigars, featuring its brand image of the painting De Staalmeesters by theDutchartistRembrandtvanRijn, is pressed flat on the canvas tomake it clear to theviewer (as if therecouldbeanydoubt) that it is a painting and not a consumer product. Rivers’ loops of self-reference predated by decades today’s obsession with meta-information. The Last CivilWar Veteranmemorializesmore than 2millionmenwhoserved in thearmiesof theNorthandSouthduring theAmericanCivilWar.By 1955onlyahalf-dozenwere still alive.AlbertWoolson, ofDuluth,Minnesota,whowasadrummer boy with the First Minnesota Heavy Artillery Regiment, died in 1956 at the age of 106. John Salling of Slant, Virginia, received a military pension in 1933 for service in Company D of the 25th Virginia Regiment, and based on this pension he was thought be the last Civil War veteran from the Commonwealth of Virginiawhenhe died in 1959. However, a reviewof census records revealed thathehadbeenborn in 1858andwas therefore too young to have served in the Civil War. He may have beenmotivated by poverty during the Great Depression tomake a false claim ofmilitary service.WalterWilliams, the subject of The Last Civil War Veteran, died in 1959 at the reputed age of 116. Census data indicated that he was also too young to have served in theCivilWar, leavingAlbertWoolson as theCivilWar veteranwhohadundisputedly outlived all his comradesandenemies.Although itwasWilliams,notWoolson, whowas the intended subject, Rivers’ painting stands as a testament to the love of celebrity and veneration for the story of America’s rebirth.