Milton Avery
Gray Nude
Milton Avery
American, 1888 - 1965
1954
Oil on Canvas
9 1/2 x 6 in. (24.1 x 15.2 cm)
Signed and Dated Lower Center
An intimate, small-scale study from one of the most distinctive American modernists of the twentieth century, Gray Nude distills the female figure to its essentials. Avery renders the body in luminous, chalky grays set against a dark ground, flattening volume into interlocking planes of color in the manner that led critics to call him "the American Matisse." The elongated, gently geometric form reflects the pared-down, poetic simplicity of his mature style—an approach that profoundly influenced younger friends and admirers including Mark Rothko and Adolph Gottlieb.
Painted in 1954, this canvas is an intimate precursor to a subject Avery would return to on a grand scale: a larger Gray Nude of 1957 (46 × 32 in.) develops the same striding, monumental figure across a full-size composition. Together the two works show Avery refining a single motif from a jewel-like study to a commanding statement.
An intimate, small-scale study from one of the most distinctive American modernists of the twentieth century, Gray Nude distills the female figure to its essentials. Avery renders the body in luminous, chalky grays set against a dark ground, flattening volume into interlocking planes of color in the manner that led critics to call him "the American Matisse." The elongated, gently geometric form reflects the pared-down, poetic simplicity of his mature style—an approach that profoundly influenced younger friends and admirers including Mark Rothko and Adolph Gottlieb.
Painted in 1954, this canvas is an intimate precursor to a subject Avery would return to on a grand scale: a larger Gray Nude of 1957 (46 × 32 in.) develops the same striding, monumental figure across a full-size composition. Together the two works show Avery refining a single motif from a jewel-like study to a commanding statement.
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