Early Abstract and Modernist Painting

Milton Avery (1885–1965)
Adolescence, 1947
Defying classification, Milton Avery developed a distinctive representational style in which domestic scenes are transformed into abstract, flat expanses of warm color. Although his use of arbitrary shades and simplified forms reveals his interest in the work of the French modernist Henri Matisse (1869–1954), Avery often denied the connection. Fifteen-year-old March (b. 1932), Avery’s daughter and one of his favorite subjects, is the central figure of Adolescence. Her pale, featureless face contrasts with the glowing colors surrounding her. March’s figure, the main focus of the painting, is intimately defined by her environment. Avery exaggerated the length of her legs and cropped her feet as if to underscore the peculiar combination of awkwardness and grace that characterizes the teen years. Aloof and absorbed in her reading, she is the personification of adolescent leisure.
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Early Abstract and Modernist Painting

Joseph Stella (1877–1946)
Telegraph Poles with Buildings, 1917

Max Weber (1881–1961)
Construction, 1915

Patrick Henry Bruce (1881–1936)
Peinture, 1917–18

Marsden Hartley (1877–1943)
Painting No. 50, 1914–15

Arthur Dove (1880–1946)
Nature Symbolized #3: Steeple and Trees, 1911–12

Arthur Dove (1880–1946)
Sails, 1911–12

Charles Demuth (1883–1935)
Welcome to Our City, 1921

Yasuo Kuniyoshi (1880–1953)
Boy with Cow, 1921

Stuart Davis (1892–1964)
Super Table, 1925

Helen Torr (1886–1967)
Purple and Green Leaves, 1927

Arthur Dove (1880–1946)
Boat Going through Inlet, c. 1929

John Graham (1881–1961)
The Green Chair, 1928

John Storrs (1885–1956)
Politics, 1931

Ernest Lawson (1873–1939)
Brooklyn Bridge, 1917–20

John Marin (1870–1953)
Sailboat, Brooklyn Bridge, New York Skyline, 1934

Georgia O'Keeffe (1887–1986)
Red Amaryllis, 1937

Albert Eugene Gallatin (1881–1952)
Room Space, 1937–38

Milton Avery (1885–1965)
Adolescence, 1947

George Tooker (1920–2011)
Highway, 1953

Ed Paschke (1939–2004)
Topcat Boy, 1970

Beauford Delaney (1901–1979)
Untitled (Village Street Scene), 1948

Philip Evergood (1901–1973)
Passing Show, 1951

Jamie Wyeth (b. 1946)
Kalounna in Frogtown, 1986