Estimate: $200,000 - $300,000
American Art & Pennsylvania Impressionists
Auction: December 7, 2014 2:00:00 PM EDT
Signed 'Milton Avery' bottom right, oil on canvas
28 x 36 in. (71.1 x 91.4cm)
Provenance: The Honorable Lawrence Meredith Clemson Smith, Former Board of Trustees President of the American Federation of Arts, 1948-1951.
By descent in the family.
Private Collection, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
NOTE:
A leading American Modernist, Milton Avery's work stands out for his commitment to representation and his celebrated use of color. His subjects were often pulled from daily life: his family, objects around the studio, and the surrounding landscape when he escaped the city. Painted in the late 30's or early 40's, the present work illustrates a period of transition for the artist as he began a departure from a more expressionist style, to his signature style of even, broad fields of color contained by sharply delineated lines. The child in the water is likely March Avery, with her mother, Sally sitting on the beach. The male figure is almost certainly not the artist, but may in fact be his friend and fellow artist, Adolph Gottlieb.
This work has been examined by The Milton and Sally Avery Arts Foundation and will be accompanied by the Foundation's official letter.