拍品专文
The Seamstresswas painted in 1944, a year of great artistic inspiration for Avery. Apart from being the artist's most prolific season, 1944 exposed Milton Avery to an usually rich field of inspiration from Europe's most exciting artists. Avery entered into a contractual agreement with famed gallery owner Paul Rosenberg who added Avery to his stable of artists in early 1944. Although the artist's association with Valentine Dudensing was a successful and educational experience, a new contract with Paul Rosenberg promised Avery guaranteed sales of at least 25 paintings twice each year.
This financial security and new business relationship allowed Avery a clear mind with which to paint voraciously. The most important change in Avery's life this year, however, was the newfound access to Europe's most avant-garde painters and their abstract ideals. Paul Rosenberg had come to this country just four years earlier with a cache of great works by important European artists that provided Avery a new understanding of abstract representation.
Barbara Haskell has eloquently explained these new influences: "Rosenberg's proclivity for taut structure and architectonic solidity encouraged Avery to emphasize these aspects of his work. He replaced the brushy paint application and graphic detailing that had informed his previous efforts with denser more evenly modulated areas of flattened color contained within crisply delineated forms. The result..was a more abstract interlocking of shapes and a shallower pictorial space than he had previously employed. Avery retained color as the primary vehicle of feeling and expression, but achieved a greater degree of abstraction by increasing the parity between recognizable forms and abstract shapes". (B. Haskell, "Milton Avery: The Metaphysics of Color", Milton Avery: Paintings from the Collection of the Neuberger Museum of Art, Purchase, New York, 1994, pp. 8-9)
The Seamstressis among Avery's most important and ambitious pictures executed in the middle forties. The composition clearly depicts a mother and child enjoying everyday chores. It is extremely likely that the subjects for this picture were Sally and March, the artist's mother and daughter. The picture must also be seen as a poetic study of color and abstract forms and testament to the success of Avery's abstract figural works.
It is these bold abstractions from the 40s and 50s, such as The Seamstress that affirm Avery's place as one of the key American Colorists and an important influence on Post-War American painting. As Alfred Jensen has noted: "Avery brought color to America."(Alfred Jensen to Edward Downe; recounted by Downe in a conversation with Barbara Haskell, New York City, July 1981)
This painting will be included in Dr. Marla Price's forthcoming catalogue raisonn of the works of Milton Avery.
This financial security and new business relationship allowed Avery a clear mind with which to paint voraciously. The most important change in Avery's life this year, however, was the newfound access to Europe's most avant-garde painters and their abstract ideals. Paul Rosenberg had come to this country just four years earlier with a cache of great works by important European artists that provided Avery a new understanding of abstract representation.
Barbara Haskell has eloquently explained these new influences: "Rosenberg's proclivity for taut structure and architectonic solidity encouraged Avery to emphasize these aspects of his work. He replaced the brushy paint application and graphic detailing that had informed his previous efforts with denser more evenly modulated areas of flattened color contained within crisply delineated forms. The result..was a more abstract interlocking of shapes and a shallower pictorial space than he had previously employed. Avery retained color as the primary vehicle of feeling and expression, but achieved a greater degree of abstraction by increasing the parity between recognizable forms and abstract shapes". (B. Haskell, "Milton Avery: The Metaphysics of Color", Milton Avery: Paintings from the Collection of the Neuberger Museum of Art, Purchase, New York, 1994, pp. 8-9)
The Seamstressis among Avery's most important and ambitious pictures executed in the middle forties. The composition clearly depicts a mother and child enjoying everyday chores. It is extremely likely that the subjects for this picture were Sally and March, the artist's mother and daughter. The picture must also be seen as a poetic study of color and abstract forms and testament to the success of Avery's abstract figural works.
It is these bold abstractions from the 40s and 50s, such as The Seamstress that affirm Avery's place as one of the key American Colorists and an important influence on Post-War American painting. As Alfred Jensen has noted: "Avery brought color to America."(Alfred Jensen to Edward Downe; recounted by Downe in a conversation with Barbara Haskell, New York City, July 1981)
This painting will be included in Dr. Marla Price's forthcoming catalogue raisonn of the works of Milton Avery.