Pool in the Rockies

Teeming with bold coloration and flattened forms, the present work is a strikingly modern example of Milton Avery's Colorado landscapes. Along with his wife Sally, Avery spent the summer of 1946 in Mexico and the American West, namely visiting Colorado. There, the couple took their car through the Rocky Mountains, taking in the scenery that later inspired the present work. According to Patricia J. Broder, Avery's Rocky Mountain landscapes "are based on interlocking abstract forms, with both negative and positive shapes of equal importance, but Avery refused to invent forms—they were always based on physical reality." (P.J. Broder, The American West: The Modern Vision, Boston, 1984, p. 289) Indeed, Pool in the Rockies expertly connects simplified shapes of rich color to create a recognizable, yet entirely stylized, artistic vision of the American West.