Lot 42
- 42
Milton Avery 1885 - 1965
Estimate
600,000 - 800,000 USD
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Description
- Milton Avery
- Reclining Female
- signed Milton Avery and dated 1963 (lower right); also signed, titled, dated and inscribed "Reclining Female"/30 x 50 by Milton Avery/1963 on the reverse; also inscribed "Incoming Tide"/by/Milton Avery/1957/30 x 50 (crossed out by the artist) on the reverse
- oil on canvas
- 29 1/4 by 49 1/2 inches
- (74.3 by 125.7 cm)
Provenance
Milton Avery Trust
The Alpha Gallery, Boston, Massachusetts, 1969 (acquired from the above)
Estate of Barbara Wescott, Rosemont, New Jersey (sold: Sotheby Parke Bernet, New York, October 27, 1977, lot 235, illustrated)
Waddington & Tooth Galleries, London, England (acquired at the above sale)
The Alpha Gallery, Boston, Massachusetts, 1969 (acquired from the above)
Estate of Barbara Wescott, Rosemont, New Jersey (sold: Sotheby Parke Bernet, New York, October 27, 1977, lot 235, illustrated)
Waddington & Tooth Galleries, London, England (acquired at the above sale)
Exhibited
Little Rock, Arkansas, Arkansas Art Center; Lincoln, Nebraska, Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery, University of Nebraska, Milton Avery, 1893-1965, April-June 1966
Boston, Massachusetts, The Alpha Gallery, Milton Avery, October 1973, illustrated
Boston Massachusetts, The Alpha Gallery, The Estate of Barbara Wescott, Rosemont, New Jersey, December 1979
Boston, Massachusetts, The Alpha Gallery, Milton Avery, October 1973, illustrated
Boston Massachusetts, The Alpha Gallery, The Estate of Barbara Wescott, Rosemont, New Jersey, December 1979
Catalogue Note
In Reclining Female, Milton Avery reinvents the traditional motif of the female figure in repose with his distinctive, thoroughly modern vision. He reduces the central elements of the scene to only their essential forms. As he transforms the subject into a complex arrangement of shape and color, Avery blurs the boundary between representation and abstraction and demonstrates his most celebrated aesthetic.
Avery’s mature style emerged in the 1940s, soon after the artist left his art dealer Valentine Dudensig to join Paul Rosenberg at his illustrious New York gallery. Encouraged by Rosenberg, Avery intensified his earlier experiments with the application of non-associative color and the simplification of forms. While he continued to work representationally, Avery abandoned many conventional pictorial devices and instead employed color to indicate depth, space and mood. Beginning in the 1950s, he pushed this preoccupation even further, omitting all extraneous components and details from his works.
In Reclining Female, Avery renders the composition as three large planes—the figure, a vibrant red pillow, and the surface upon which she rests. By interpreting each component as a single area of color, Avery maintains a dramatically compressed pictorial space and only suggests illusionistic recession. Rendering the figure through a two-dimensional design, Avery strives not to capture his subject’s likeness faithfully but rather to distill the abstract qualities inherent in the representational world.
Avery’s mature style emerged in the 1940s, soon after the artist left his art dealer Valentine Dudensig to join Paul Rosenberg at his illustrious New York gallery. Encouraged by Rosenberg, Avery intensified his earlier experiments with the application of non-associative color and the simplification of forms. While he continued to work representationally, Avery abandoned many conventional pictorial devices and instead employed color to indicate depth, space and mood. Beginning in the 1950s, he pushed this preoccupation even further, omitting all extraneous components and details from his works.
In Reclining Female, Avery renders the composition as three large planes—the figure, a vibrant red pillow, and the surface upon which she rests. By interpreting each component as a single area of color, Avery maintains a dramatically compressed pictorial space and only suggests illusionistic recession. Rendering the figure through a two-dimensional design, Avery strives not to capture his subject’s likeness faithfully but rather to distill the abstract qualities inherent in the representational world.