Milton Avery

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Avery, Milton (1885–1965). American painter. He was born in Altmar, New York, spent most of his early life in Connecticut, and settled in New York City in 1925. Although he studied briefly at the Connecticut League of Art Students, he was essentially self-taught as an artist, and in his early years he supported himself with a variety of night jobs so he could paint during the day. It was only after his marriage in 1926 that his wife's earnings (she was an illustrator) allowed him to concentrate full-time on painting. ( Avery's wife, Sally Michel, was considerably younger than him and it was perhaps to improve his chances in courting her that he took eight years off his age; his date of birth is usually given as 1893, but there is good evidence to indicate that he was born in 1885.)

Avery was an independent figure, described by Robert Hughes as ‘a mild, unassuming man who disliked publicity and at best made a bare living from his work … a man of absolute dedication and conviction, a painter who did almost nothing but paint'; if he was asked to discuss his work his usual reply was ‘Why talk when you can paint?’ At a time when most of his leading contemporaries were working in fairly sober, naturalistic styles (see AMERICAN SCENE PAINTING), he followed the example of Matisse in using flat areas of colour within flowing outlines. He was the main and practically only channel through whom this subtle colouristic tradition was sustained in America until a new interest was taken in it in the 1940s by younger artists such as Rothko (his close friend) and Gottlieb. Rothko in particular acknowledged the debt that he and other abstract painters owed to the ‘sheer loveliness’ of Avery's work, in which he had ‘invented sonorities never seen nor heard before'. Although Avery himself never abandoned representation (his favourite subjects included landscapes and beach scenes), some of his later works are so broadly conceived and ethereally painted that they can at first glance be mistaken for abstracts (Spring Orchard, National Museum of American Art, Washington, 1959).

Avery, Milton (b Altmar, NY, 7 Mar. 1885; d New York, 3 Jan. 1965). American painter, active mainly in New York. (His date of birth is usually given as 1893, but there is good evidence to indicate that he was born in 1885; it was possibly to improve his chances in courting his wife, who was appreciably younger than him, that he deducted eight years from his age.) Avery was an independent figure, described by Robert Hughes as ‘a mild, unassuming man who disliked publicity and at best made a bare living from his work’. At a time when most of his leading contemporaries were working in fairly sober, naturalistic styles (see American Scene Painting), he followed the example of Matisse in using flat areas of colour within flowing outlines. He was the main and practically only channel through which this subtle colouristic tradition was sustained in America until a new interest was taken in it during the 1940s by younger artists such as Rothko (his close friend) and Gottlieb. Rothko in particular acknowledged the debt that he and other abstract painters owed to the ‘sheer loveliness’ of Avery's work, in which he had ‘invented sonorities never seen nor heard before’. Although Avery himself never abandoned representation (his favourite subjects included landscapes and beach scenes), some of his later works are so broadly conceived and ethereally painted that they can at first glance be mistaken for abstracts (Spring Orchard, 1959, Nat. Mus. of American Art, Washington).

Avery, Milton (1885–1965). American painter, active mainly in New York. Avery was an independent figure: at a time when most of his leading contemporaries were working in fairly sober, naturalistic styles (see American Scene Painting), he followed the example of Matisse in using flat areas of colour within flowing outlines. He was the main and practically only channel through which this subtle colouristic tradition was sustained in America until a new interest was taken in it during the 1940s by younger artists such as Rothko (his close friend) and Gottlieb. Rothko in particular acknowledged the debt that he and other abstract painters owed to the ‘sheer loveliness’ of Avery's work, in which he had ‘invented sonorities never seen nor heard before’. Although Avery himself never abandoned representation (his favourite subjects included landscapes and beach scenes), some of his later works are so broadly conceived and ethereally painted that they can at first glance be mistaken for abstracts (Spring Orchard, 1959, Nat. Mus. of American Art, Washington).

Milton Avery , 1893–1965, American painter, b. Altmar, N.Y. Avery moved to New York City in 1925. Bold massing of forms is characteristic of his figurative work, such as Poetry Reading (1957; Munson-Williams-Proctor Inst., Utica, N.Y.). His landscapes, including Green Sea (1954; Metropolitan Mus.), and his seascapes, such as Boathouse by the Sea (1959), verge on complete abstraction. Avery's paintings are both deceptively simple and powerful, displaying qualities of fantasy and poetic gaiety within the tradition of Matisse and becoming simpler and more subtle in his later years.

Bibliography: See study by H. Kramer (1962); exhibition catalog ed. by A. D. Breeskin (1969).