With its proximity to the cultural hub of New York City and its quieter suburban and rural landscapes, Connecticut was fertile ground for artists and writers in the period of Modernist movements between 1913 and 1979. Many of these cultural figures are well known through biographical and critical studies. Creative Places seeks to show how place played a significant role in creative work, and how in turn the artists and writers influenced communities in Connecticut.
Milton Avery
Painting/Drawing
1885 – 1965
- Biography/Description of Work
Avery was in the Hartford area by 1898, living across the Connecticut River in East Hartford. He studied for more than a decade with Charles Noel Flagg at the Connecticut League of Art Students, an evening school for men, supporting himself with factory work. In 1918 he enrolled at the more professional school of the Art Society of Hartford and worked nights in order to paint by day. He began exhibiting at the Connecticut Academy of Fine Arts in 1915. His early work (example in the collection of the Florence Griswold Museum in Old Lyme) has links to Impressionism. He was helped during difficult years in Hartford by the father of his friend Clinton O’Callahan who bought several of his early paintings. Avery moved to New York City in 1925, where he saw for the first time the work of Matisse and other avant-garde Europeans, who greatly influenced him. He studied at the Art Students League from 1926 to 1938 and became friends with Adolph Gottlieb, Mark Rothko and Barnett Newman, all Modernist leaning artists. In 1938 he completed WPA easel commissions. Stylistically, Avery developed a unique style of flattened color forms to portray representational subject matter.
- Sources view
- UConn artists database, Falk 99, Rachel Carley, http://www.milton-avery.com/, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milton_Avery, http://bjws.blogspot.com/2011/04/paintings-of-american-milton-avery-1888.html, http://www.moma.org/collection/artist.php?artist_id=250, http://www.davistownmuseum.org/bioMiltonAvery.html, http://www.dcmooregallery.com/artists/milton-avery, http://www.veredart.com/artists/10/milton_avery/, http://www.phillipscollection.org/research/american, http://www.questroyalfineart.com/artist/milton-avery Milton Avery Article - New York Times - 1963-11-3, Milton Avery Article - New York Times - 1980-7-3, Milton Avery Article - New York Times - 1982-8-29, Milton Avery Article - New York Times - 1982-10-10, Milton Avery Article - New York Times - 1984-1-6, Milton Avery Article - New York Times - 1985-3-31, Milton Avery Article - New York Times - 1986-2-14, Milton Avery Article - The Hartford Courant - 1981-6-14, Milton Avery Obituary - The Hartford Courant - 1965-1-4
- Associated Resource(s)