Green Sea

Milton Avery embodied the vigor of American modernism in balancing his inclination toward abstraction with his devotion to working from nature. In 1925, he moved from his native Connecticut to New York City and quickly became immersed in avant-garde circles. A steadfast admirer of Matisse and Picasso, he favored simplified forms and flat, luminous colors. (In later years, his generalized forms and flat planes of color were to have a strong impact on Adolph Gottlieb, Mark Rothko, and other young artists associated with Abstract Expressionism). Avery was less concerned with the environment or with historical associations than with the aesthetic problems of relating color to form.

During his stay in Provincetown on Cape Cod in the summer of 1957, Avery was deeply affected by his surroundings, and his subsequent paintings of sea and sand evoke a sense of serenity and harmony through the exacting balance of representation and abstraction.