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Lot Essay
Executed in 1945, Visitor by the Sea was executed in a year of great artistic inspiration for Avery. The present painting is an example of the artist's talent at expressing a mood of calm and serenity through his depiction of a single figure relaxing on a porch as the ebb and flow of the Gloucester tide can be seen through the door behind her. "Avery's genius lay in his ability to portray moods that stimulate each viewer's consciousness on an almost archetypal level. As the depiction of iconic relationships came to dominate his work, his paintings acquired greater poignancy. In relinquishing the transitory and the specific, Avery bestowed on his subjects a suspended calm. Depictions of group activities -- family and friends playing games, making music, relaxing together at the beach -- were replaced by a quality of separateness." (B. Haskell, Milton Avery, New York, 1982, pp. 161, 164)
The highly saturated palette seen in Visitor by the Sea is typical of Avery's works from this period, as is his rendering of a figure through a strict, plastic two-dimensional design. In the present work, he simplifies the woman and the objects while invigorating them through his sophisticated use of infused colors. "There are hazards in this approach to the figure, but Avery has somehow side-stepped the greatest of these, namely, a sense of fixity that would deprive his figures of animation. The characteristic attitude of Avery's figures is one of relaxation and repose. His women -- most of his figures are female -- read, carry on conversation, talk on the telephone, lie on the beach, or sit around daydreaming. They project a presence that, however disinterested, is far removed from the pictorial stasis that the artist's method might seem to hold in store for them. The reason, of course, is that Avery's color imparts an emotional drama, a weight of emphasis and nuance, that recapitulates on the level of retinal sensation whatever graphic complexities have eliminated in the process." (H. Kramer, Milton Avery: Paintings 1920-1960, New York, 1962, pp. 17-9)
For Visitor by the Sea, Avery has created tension and balance by painting complimentary and contrasting colors, shapes and patterns. Avery uses bold colors throughout the work such as the bright pink, yellow, green, orange and blue and has balanced them against the neutral colored wall, chair and rug. Avery has contrasted the shapes of color, balanced by the smooth, curving lines juxtaposed against hard edges. The rounded forms of the figure wearing an oversized hat and the rounded back chair she sits in are set against the lines of the floor, the shape of the rug and the frame of the door. Depicting a woman relaxing by the water, Visitor by the Sea is a mastery of Avery's hallmark network of contrasting patterns and shapes in bright colors lending an expressive feeling of calmness to this work.
The highly saturated palette seen in Visitor by the Sea is typical of Avery's works from this period, as is his rendering of a figure through a strict, plastic two-dimensional design. In the present work, he simplifies the woman and the objects while invigorating them through his sophisticated use of infused colors. "There are hazards in this approach to the figure, but Avery has somehow side-stepped the greatest of these, namely, a sense of fixity that would deprive his figures of animation. The characteristic attitude of Avery's figures is one of relaxation and repose. His women -- most of his figures are female -- read, carry on conversation, talk on the telephone, lie on the beach, or sit around daydreaming. They project a presence that, however disinterested, is far removed from the pictorial stasis that the artist's method might seem to hold in store for them. The reason, of course, is that Avery's color imparts an emotional drama, a weight of emphasis and nuance, that recapitulates on the level of retinal sensation whatever graphic complexities have eliminated in the process." (H. Kramer, Milton Avery: Paintings 1920-1960, New York, 1962, pp. 17-9)
For Visitor by the Sea, Avery has created tension and balance by painting complimentary and contrasting colors, shapes and patterns. Avery uses bold colors throughout the work such as the bright pink, yellow, green, orange and blue and has balanced them against the neutral colored wall, chair and rug. Avery has contrasted the shapes of color, balanced by the smooth, curving lines juxtaposed against hard edges. The rounded forms of the figure wearing an oversized hat and the rounded back chair she sits in are set against the lines of the floor, the shape of the rug and the frame of the door. Depicting a woman relaxing by the water, Visitor by the Sea is a mastery of Avery's hallmark network of contrasting patterns and shapes in bright colors lending an expressive feeling of calmness to this work.