Vase by the Sea, 1944
Watercolor on paper
30 x 22 inches
Biography
Born in 1885 in Altmar, New York, Milton Avery, while still in his teens, supported himself and his nine sisters by working factory jobs. Despite his heavy workload and responsibilities, Avery found time to continue his painting studies. After marrying Sally Michel, he moved to New York City in 1925, where he encountered an exciting art scene and began combining the semi-abstract tendencies of the avant-garde with his already impressionistic early style. Although Avery's art became increasingly abstract, he never eliminated the figure. His mature style, fully developed by the mid-1940s, is characterized by a reduction of elements to their essential forms, elimination of detail, and a pattern of flattened shapes, with arbitrary color in the manner of Matisse. Avery’s work, with its emphasis on color, influenced younger artists, in particular Mark Rothko, Adolph Gottlieb, Barnett Newman, and Helen Frankenthaler.
