 | ||||
The NYC Insider's Guide
for women who aren't kids
The Three Tomatoes
HomeI NYC Life I Food & Drink IStyle I Shopping I Travel I Health I Entertainment I Home&Hearth I Money&Careers I Love&Sex I Give Back I About Us
HTML Comment Box is loading comments...
At the Galleries with Bascove
Featuring New York Artists & Galleries
With Solo exhibitions at the Museum of the City of New York, the Arsenal in Central Park, the Municipal Art Society, the Hudson River Museum, NYU Fales Library, and The National Arts Club, Bascove has documented and celebrated the wondrous Bridges of New York City. She has worked with The New York, Brooklyn, and Roosevelt Island Historical Societies, and has lectured and arranged events with the Museum of the City of New York, the Central Park Conservancy, the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation, the Municipal Art Society, NYU Fales Library, and the Hudson River Museum. Her work can be found in numerous private and public collections, including: the Museum of the City of New York, the MTA Arts for Transit, the Rachofsky Collection, the Norwalk Transit District, Time Warner, the Oresman Collection, and the Musée of Cherbourg. Three collections of her paintings, accompanied by anthologies of related writings: Sustenance & Desire: A Food Lover's Anthology of Sensuality and Humor (2004), Where Books Fall Open: A Reader’s Anthology of Wit and Passion (2001), a 2002 Book Sense Selection; and Stone and Steel: Paintings and Writings Celebrating the Bridges of New York City (1998), have been published by David R. Godine. Her work can be viewed at Bascove.com.
Recent Articles
MILTON AVERY
Selected Works
Curated by McWillie Chambers
The poetry of Milton Avery’s art is felt at first glance. His paintings are transportingly beautiful.
To understand Avery you must start with Sally Michel. A much younger artist, she deeply admired his paintings and strong sense of discipline. She wanted him to be able to concentrate on his work unencumbered. Sally became Avery’s wife, her work as an illustrator for the New York Times supporting the family through much of their lives. Her desire and will to protect her family from the cares of the outside world is essential to understanding the remarkable life of mutual grace that would be uniquely theirs.
Avery, who often read aloud from the writings of Wallace Stevens, could well be described by the poet’s edict “I am what is around me.” He painted the landscapes that he saw so often that the elements became a personal voice. He loved the sky and the sea; they were his touchstones in understanding illumination. Sally, and their daughter March, friends and family, the interiors of their studios and homes were the world as he felt it in his deepest being. This is the subject matter intently explored decade after decade that, for this quiet-spoken man, reflected the depth of his distinguished vision.
Black Lake, 1963, oil on paper, 23” x 35"
The landscape, “Black Lake”, has tones of russet, pink and gold, and milky viridian, the brushstrokes swirl and curve like mysterious calligraphy. A stark, dark black green angle thrusting from the lower right becomes the lake, stabilizing and giving weight to this romantic, moody painting. Perhaps the poetry of Stevens could describe it best:
The night is of the color Of a woman’s arm:Night, the female, Obscure, Fragrant and supple,Conceals herself.Avery is known as a master of color. His meticulously chosen translucent pigments are heightened by the light coming through surfaces of canvas or paper. He focused on making colors harmonious by a process of painting thin layers of closely valued hues. The beauty and luminescence this produced had a lasting influence on his younger friends, the artists Mark Rothko, Barnett Newman, and Adolph Gottlieb. Although they were more concerned with abstraction than recognizable imagery, their work reflects the development of Avery’s mindful layering technique.
This exhibit also includes examples of Avery’s ease and confidence in various methods of printmaking. In woodcut and drypoint, line and form are simplified almost to the point of gesture. With the subjects of portraits, newborns, nudes and animals, a sense of intimacy prevails.
Nude Reclining, 1939, drypoint, 3 ½” x 7 ¼”"
In Avery’s work imagery has been freed from all extraneous details. Form, always recognizable, has been concentrated to a powerful, bold simplicity. Depth of space is conjured with the economy of a few diagonal shapes
From the Studio, 1954, oil on canvas, 58” x 42"
In “From the Studio”, a large canvas shows a vast expanse of pure flat red that we must cross to enter an area framed in black, past a black door, where a more private space exists. A woman sits in that space, barely distinguishable from the light on the outside field. Two lines of gorgeous lavender describe a window. In contrast to the spare, opaque planes of the room the trees outside the window, in a lucent square of blues and greens, are alive with energy, light strokes in all directions indicating limbs and leaves.
As Stevens said, “poetry and painting operate at the juncture between imagination and reality”. What a wonderful description of Avery's harmonious rapport between his life and his work; they are one.
_________
After 38 years as an art dealer, both for Avery’s former gallery and in a private capacity, McWillie Chambers’ unique insights are clearly visible in this exhibition. Considered one of the foremost experts on Avery’s life and work, he has given great thought to collecting a variety of pieces from different periods, encompassing paintings, drawings and prints.
Questions for McWillie Chambers
B You have spoken movingly of your relationship with Avery’s work as learning a language, could you elaborate?
learning a language, could you elaborate?MC His works are compelling because he invented a very personal language in his paintings. He combined appealing subjects with very rigorous formal compositions and remarkable color harmonies. The paintings give us so much pleasure on many levels, initially beautiful with an underlying sophistication.
his paintings. He combined appealing subjects with very rigorous formal compositions and remarkable color harmonies. The paintings give us so much pleasure on many levels, initially beautiful with an underlying sophistication. B Avery was known to be highly influential to artists Mark Rothko and Barnett Newman. As an artist yourself, have you been influenced by his work?
Barnett Newman. As an artist yourself, have you been influenced by his work? MC Avery has provided all of us with such a good example of a truly dedicated artist. He was an artist who followed his own instincts and remained always true to his personal vision. Avery gave us a kind of painting no one had ever seen before or since.
dedicated artist. He was an artist who followed his own instincts and remained always true to his personal vision. Avery gave us a kind of painting no one had ever seen before or since. What it means to be an artist was well expressed by Avert himself "In order to paint one has to go by the way one does not know. Art is like turning corners. One never knows what is around the corner until one has made the turn."
paint one has to go by the way one does not know. Art is like turning corners. One never knows what is around the corner until one has made the turn." MILTON AVERY: Selected Works Curated by McWillie Chambers
February 16th – March 17th
Opening: Thursday, February 16, 5 - 7 PM
Fischbach Gallery, 210 Eleventh Avenue, New York, NY, 10001
Tel. 212-759-2345, Fax: 212-366-1783, www.fischbachgallery.com
Excerpt from ‘Six Significant Landscapes” by Wallace Stevens, © 1990
