"...Gestural in style but more fragmentary and referential... the 1959 Cedar Bar Menu I... contain[s] the elements that also appeared in Pop Art, a style characterized by its cool, disengaged appropriation of slick images from everyday life...."

However, "...in Rivers' hands the emerging style is different from what became the conventional imagery and techniques of Pop Art. He had used such key Pop motifs as disembodied lettering years earlier, as part of the overall composition and not as the main subject. Rivers, however, monumentalized and transformed the graphic elements in familiar objects, treating them as vital parts of an expressive statement that is an intense record of reality. His responsiveness to visual stimulation, and his attachment to a personal, gestural style made the philosophical ambiguities felt in works by such Pop artists as Jasper Johns remote from his own intentions."

(Excerpt from the book Larry Rivers by Sam Humter, Arthur A. Bartley Publishers, 1989)