Milton Avery

Grace Borgenicht Gallery, New York 
Rosemarie Sena, New York, 1980 (acquired from the above)
Grace Borgenicht Gallery, New York
Acquired by the present owner from the above, 1995

Houston, Texas, Sarah Campbell Blaffer Gallery, University of Houston; Mexico City, Mexico, Museo de Arte Moderno de Mexico; Monterrey, Mexico, Museo de Monterrey; Caracas, Venezuela, El Museo de Bellas Artes; Newport Beach, California, Newport Harbour Art Museum, Milton Avery in Mexico and After, August 1981-July 1982, illustrated p. 44

This work is in good condition and the edges of the canvas are taped. The canvas is lined. There is craquelure in the blue, white and yellow pigments. Under UV: there is a small area of inpainting in the upper right corner and a few dots at the upper left edge
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In the summer of 1946, Milton Avery and his family spent three months in Mexico exploring the country and immersing themselves in its rich culture. The trip had a significant impact on the artist, inspiring a series of paintings that focused on the role of women outside of the home and further explored his interest in juxtaposing bold colors. In Water Carrier, painted in 1947, Avery depicts a female figure skillfully balancing a clay water jug on her shoulder against the backdrop of a rural townscape. He flattens and simplifies the buildings and sky but maintains the figurative form of the woman in order to successfully convey the narrative of the scene. As seen in many of Avery's pictures from this period, he experiments with contrasting colors by placing geometric forms of pink, blue and brown within a less spatially defined background. The bright hues reflect Avery's desire to capture the mood of the distinctive landscape and vibrant culture of Mexico.  

In the catalogue for the 1981-82 exhibition Milton Avery in Mexico and After, Dore Ashton writes, "If we look back to the paintings of Mexico of the late 1940s, we find the characteristic Avery sensibility and yet, we find an indelible remembrance of a specific place. The way the people move slowly through dry, heated landscape, is peculiar to Mexico, or at least to Avery's vision of Mexico. The colors are certainly heated, but never shrill. Avery was painting in Mexico during the height of popularity of the Mexican muralists; yet, his calm, tender vision prevailed. Nothing swayed him from his original course" (Milton Avery in Mexico and After, New York, 1981, p. 18).