Milton Avery ~ More Portraits and Self Portraits

Annette Kaufman whose portrait is our feature of the week here at Fifty Two Pieces is still alive and living in the Los Angeles area in a home designed by Lloyd Wright, son of Frank Lloyd Wright. Reportedly the first thing you see when you open the door is one of Milton Avery's many portraits of her husband Louis - Red Suspenders on White Shirt. I love the red in those suspenders and the lips, those lips are to die for. The use of that unusual coloring under Kaufman's eyes is quite striking. Browsing around the internet I found the image below. It's entitled Portrait of Louis M. Eilshemius and was painted in 1942. Eilshemius was a rather eccentric artist and certainly seems as such in Avery's portrait. If Hollywood were to make a movie of Eilshemius' life, I think the perfect actor to play the role would be Bill Murray.



Amy had two self portraits by Milton Avery on her Friday post. The more sedate one showing Avery with a hat was done in 1930. The other with haunting wide eyes and bright red lips was painted in 1944. A great deal must have transpired in those fourteen years. As can be seen in the self portrait below, the process had already started in 1939. Those blue eyes are chilling and the red ears –– the only time I've seen ears that red is when someone is running a high fever. The red stripes in that shirt could well be pajamas.



And in 1950, he created this triangular version of himself -- almost sedate by comparison with the painting from 1939 and the one the other day from 1944.

Milton Avery's Blank Face Paintings

Sunday's post started a comment thread, one that made me want to see all of Milton Avery's Blank Face Paintings.
I fell in love with each one.
None seems quite as blank to me as Mother and Child. None as flat.
This one is Conversation from 1956.








And here is Interlude, done in 1960. The color melts me. I absolutely love the forms. The face of the woman in white is far enough away that though flat, she still doesn't feel as blatently blank.

Here is Two Women from 1950. If LaValle and I have another blog this should be our title and image for it.

Here is another wonderful painting called Poetry Reading done in 1957.

Here is Card Players from 1934, compare it to the one done a decade later, shown below:

Gary G. said this is one of his favorite Avery blank face portraits, Card Players from 1944.

These dynamic duo's remind me of LaValle and I. These women are doing timeless things timelessly. These blank faces are a great contrast to those Annette Kaufman eyebrows.

Milton Avery ~ Rothko and Matisse Connections

Still Life with Flowers by Milton Avery sold at Christie's in 2005. When I first saw this painting, the name Matisse flashed in front of my eyes. It certainly has some of the same elements of Matisse's Red Studio from 1911. In Still Life with Flowers Avery has chosen red for his walls and table top (Matisse, walls are red), has still life elements (Matisse, still life elements) and some of his own paintings (Matisse, a few of his paintings). Although Avery had embraced color and form reduction in his early paintings it wasn't until after he was exposed to Matisse's work that he incorporated the "Fauve attitude toward non-associative color". There seemed to be a link to Matisse – some even thought of Avery as the American Matisse. However, Avery often denied the influence of Matisse on his work, "saying that it was too hedonistic for his taste," Barbara Haskell from the Whitney has written in her book Milton Avery of the connection between Avery and Matisse. Feel free to choose yes or no.



It seems that Matisse's Red Studio had an influence on another artist, Mark Rothko. In Week 4 here at Fifty Two Pieces, we looked at Rothko's Homage to Matisse. Rothko attributed all that he knew about color to Matisse. In 1949, the Museum of Modern Art began to permanently display Matisse's Red Studio. Rothko told friends that he credited Matisse with his understanding of color. "You became that color, you became totally saturated with it as if it were music". According to one friend visiting from Italy, he had told Mell: "You remember when I used to pass my days at the Museum of Modern Art looking at Matisse's Red Studio? You asked: why always that and only that picture? You thought I was wasting my time. But this house you owe to Matisse's Red Studio. And from those months and that looking every day all of my painting was born." .... Rothko's painting certainly had changed in the late 1940's. This was when he began to paint the large areas of color that he is remembered for the most, shifting from less figurative but more abstract paintings such as Slow Swirl at the Edge of the Sea, 1944.

Louis Kaufman (Annette Kaufman's husband) had a slightly different view of influences on Rothko's work, at least his earlier work before 1945. Kaufman knew Rothko from their days growing up in Portland. When Rothko arrived in New York in the late 1920's, Kaufman introduced him to Milton Avery. Louis Kaufman was interviewed by the Smithsonian and remembers this about Avery and Rothko...

I took Marcus to Milton and then he became a real fanatic on the work of Milton. It had an immediate effect on his work. If you have the big book on Rothko, you'll see that some of the early Rothkos could be mistaken, of the same period, for Milton's work, practically the same compositions and so forth. He soon got out of that. It was a sort of natural homage to a man he admired. One thing it did do, I think very definitely, it cleared up Marcus' sense of color remarkably.

So there you have it -- Avery linked to Matisse, Rothko linked to Matisse, Rothko linked to Avery.

Amy Finds Amy

It was interesting to find another online art blogger, Amy Schimler, who recently blogged about Milton Avery. Here she posted her favorite image of his, Mother and Child from 1944.
Schimler's bio is so loveable, she likes nature walks and red licorice laces and flea markets. She's an artist who calls her work Red Fish Circle, and she thanks you for joining in on her creative journal. What is it she loves so well about this piece of Avery's work? She says it is her favorite and she spent time searching for it. I think it could be the strange way Avery painted the mother as no other mother had been painted before. She's ghostly snow white, against a deep gray chair in a steel gray room. The only warmth, and warm is the way to describe it, is the earth tone baby in a violet cap and mustard yellow coat. Yeah Milton! What notion led him as he blotched out every drop of color from the woman then gave her tightly combed jet black hair. And she hasn't lost the sense of love, the concern, the adoration she has of the child. Why is she cold, has she disappeared, can she be seen any longer, is she just a blank page now, what was Avery thinking? Who is this about and what does it mean to Amy Schimler? I really want to know.

Milton Avery ~ Portrait of Annette Kaufman and more

Here are the main characters for this week here at Fifty Two Pieces. Annette Kaufman sits in a chair posing for Milton Avery who is painting her portrait. Between them stands Louis Kaufman, Annette's husband and preeminent violinist – they are all posing for the photographer of this image. As mentioned on Thursday's post, the Kaufmans purchased the very first painting Milton Avery ever sold. They continued to collect his paintings as well as those from many other artists. Since Louis' death in the 1990's, Annette, through their foundation, has given much of their collection of art and scores to museums and libraries.

Here are a few more of Avery's portraits of Annette to compare with the one here at the Portland Art Museum – the first shown below.























































And here's another tribute to Annette Kaufman – an oil done by Lawrence Lebduska. It hangs in the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, DC.

Milton Avery

There's something beautiful about Annette Kaufman painted by Milton Avery. Though disproportionate, she is not out of harmony. Her chin comes to a point like an icicle and her eyebrows arch over like spider legs, but they aren't frightening like Annette Funicello's in the Jiffy peanut butter ads. Here are two self portraits by Avery, they look like two completely different people.


Something he would say to his wife explains a lot about the man "Why talk when you can paint?"

Milton Avery ~ Portrait of Annette Kaufman

This image has graced the North wall of the last gallery of American art at the Portland Art Museum since I've been coming to the museum. For years, I wondered who this woman. Why had Milton Avery painted her portrait as well as the man next to her, Louis Kaufman? One day I sat down and did a Google search. It turns out Annette and Louis Kaufman were friends and patrons of Milton Avery beginning in the twenties and early 30's. It seems that in 1926, Mr. Kaufman paid Milton Avery $25 for one of his oil paintings, the very first one Avery sold. On his first date with Annette, Louis Kaufman took her to meet the Averys and to see Milton's work. Louis asked Annette to marry him on their third date and immediately asked Avery to paint a portrait of Annette. It was to be one of many including this one. Look for some of these portraits later in the week as well as more about Milton Avery and his friends and patrons, Annette and Louis Kaufman.