Defying the Trends

The career of celebrated 20th-century painter Milton Avery is explored in a traveling exhibition beginning at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth

November 7-January 30, 2022

Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth
3200 Darnell Street
t: 817.738.9215
e: Email Gallery
Visit Gallery Websites

A major exhibition for 20th-century American master Milton Avery begins at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth in Fort Worth, Texas, this November. It brings to the art world the first retrospective for the celebrated artist since 1982 when it was held at the Whitney Museum of American Art. “This retrospective survey presents a selection of Avery’s finest work from across his career, charting his constant development and revealing his unique ability to create exquisitely balanced poetic compositions of color and form,” says exhibition curator Edith Devaney, contemporary curator at the Royal Academy of Arts in London. The show will survey approximately 70 works of art from the 1910s to the mid-1960s, demonstrating Avery’s style that was nearly impossible to box into just one category, falling between both the eras of American impressionism and abstract expressionism. A number of these works have rarely been seen by the public. Milton Avery (1885-1965), Blossoming, 1918. Oil on board, 11 x 15 in. Milton Avery Trust. Photo: Adam Reich. © 2021 Milton Avery Trust / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York and DACS, London 2021.

Milton Avery (1885-1965), March in Brown, 1954. Oil on canvas, 44 x 32 in. Private collection. Photo: Adam Reich. © 2021 Milton Avery Trust / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York and DACS, London 2021.Following the artist’s career chronologically gives visitors a clear narrative of his artistic growth and development, Devaney explains, adding that American impressionism and abstract expressionism each had significant impacts on his oeuvre. “Never affiliated to any particular group or tendency, Avery followed his own artistic inclination,” she says. “With his steadfast adherence to representation and the innovative ways in which he balanced color and form within his compositions, he often appeared to be running counter to the prevailing trends of the time.”

Devaney notes the 1954 oil March in Brown as an outstanding example of the innovations Avery made in his use of form and color. “He flattened and layered his pigments onto the canvas, creating a luminosity across closely related planes of different tone, with each color modulated to complement the adjacent hue rather than providing contrast,” she says. “Black Sea, 1959, from the Phillips Collection in Washington, sees him working on the edges of abstraction and is another stand out work where he used color to create a great sense of harmony.”Milton Avery (1885-1965), Coney Island, 1931. Oil on canvas, 32 x 40 in. The Milton and Sally Avery Arts Foundation. Photo: Adam Reich. © 2021 Milton Avery Trust / Artists Rights Society (ARS),
New York and DACS, London 2021.

Milton Avery (1885-1965), Breaking Wave, 1959. Oil on canvas, 32 x 42 in. Private collection. Photo: Adam Reich. © 2021 Milton Avery Trust / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York and DACS, London 2021.

Milton Avery will be on view November 7 through January 30, 2022 at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth; continues at the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art in Connecticut from February 25 to June 5, 2022; and concludes at the Royal Academy of Arts from July 16 through October 16, 2022.

“Throughout his career he maintained a steadfast commitment to depicting the natural world, of being true to his own eye. Even in the later, more abstracted works, he never invents, he merely pares away detail, simplifying what is there,” says Devaney. “I hope visitors will...come away with the sense of the sheer joy with which Avery imbued each of his compositions.” —