- 19
Milton Avery 1885 - 1965
Estimate
150,000 - 250,000 USD
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Description
- Milton Avery
- Beach Lizards
- Signed Milton Avery (lower right); also signed, titled and dated "Beach Lizards"/by Milton Avery/1930/26 x 33 on the reverse
- Oil on canvas
- 26 by 33 inches
- (66 by 83.8 cm)
Provenance
Estate of the artist
Grace Borgenicht Gallery, New York
Estate of Perry Ellis (and sold: Sotheby's, New York, May 28, 1987, lot 341, illustrated)
Acquired at the above sale by A. Alfred Taubman
Grace Borgenicht Gallery, New York
Estate of Perry Ellis (and sold: Sotheby's, New York, May 28, 1987, lot 341, illustrated)
Acquired at the above sale by A. Alfred Taubman
Catalogue Note
Because of his penchant for sketching the forms and figures of the world around him, images of bathers and the sea appear throughout Milton Avery’s prolific body of work. Painted in 1930, Beach Lizards exemplifies Avery’s work from this decade—a period during which the artist was still developing his mature aesthetic. Beach Lizards displays the darker, more tonal palette that is characteristic of the artist’s earlier work, along with the more expressive and painterly style of execution, but he would substitute this for the brighter colors favored by the Fauves by the end of the decade. The artist’s wife, Sally, explained of this period, “What were the thirties: a time for struggle, a time for new friendships, new ideas, a time to search for a voice of one’s own. We were all poor, but not in spirit.
“Days were filled with painting. Evenings we sketched at our studio or another, dividing the cost of the model, or lacking a model, we took turns posing. Sometimes there were community dinners with each artist chipping in fifty cents. Though we lacked wine, the occasions never lacked gaiety. Seriousness was reserved for painting, each artist testing and accepting, accepting and rejecting, various ways—hoping somehow to uncover the clear voice which speaks for oneself alone, hoping to discover that small clear voice which is strictly one’s own” (David J. Barnett and Amy Palmer, eds., Milton Avery: The 1930s Period: An Exhibition of Seventy-four Oils, Watercolors, Gouaches and Drawings (exhibition catalogue), David Barnett Gallery, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, 1988, p. 6).
“Days were filled with painting. Evenings we sketched at our studio or another, dividing the cost of the model, or lacking a model, we took turns posing. Sometimes there were community dinners with each artist chipping in fifty cents. Though we lacked wine, the occasions never lacked gaiety. Seriousness was reserved for painting, each artist testing and accepting, accepting and rejecting, various ways—hoping somehow to uncover the clear voice which speaks for oneself alone, hoping to discover that small clear voice which is strictly one’s own” (David J. Barnett and Amy Palmer, eds., Milton Avery: The 1930s Period: An Exhibition of Seventy-four Oils, Watercolors, Gouaches and Drawings (exhibition catalogue), David Barnett Gallery, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, 1988, p. 6).