Milton Avery

Margaret Lipworth International Fine Arts, London

Acquired from the above in 1999 by the present owner

This vibrant and dreamlike watercolor in green, blue, purple, terracotta and ochre is one of Milton Avery's celebrated Vermont landscapes. Avery and his family first traveled to the town of Jamaica, Vermont in the summer of 1935. They were immediately enamored by the tranquility and isolation of the picturesque environment, and they returned to the area several times over the next ten years. The vast and vivid landscape of Vermont allowed Avery to freely experiment with color, deviating further than before from realistic representation.

In Along West River, Avery's interpretation of the Vermont landscape is playful and other-worldly, exemplified by the rich purple shade of the sky. Here, Avery depicts a figure (likely his daughter March) wearing a straw hat and perched alone on a rock next to the river that runs through Jamaica. Boldly and expressively colored, the figure seems to merge with the landscape—her clothes echoing the green mountain in the background, and her skin sharing the terracotta hue of the earth.