Milton Avery [by or attrib] (American, 1885-1965). "Mountain Trees". Oil on canvas. 1960. Bears signature and dated, lower left. Very good condition. Provenance: Through Mark Rothko; Private collection, New Canaan, Connecticut. An impressive example of Avery's landscape oeuvre. For a similar composition (1962) by Avery, please see "Mountain Landscape," sale at Bonhams & Butterfields New York, December 2, 2009, lot passed on presale estimates of $125,000/150,000. Avery's work is seminal to American abstract painting—while his images are clearly representational, they focus on color relations and are not concerned with creating the illusion of depth as most conventional Western painting since the Renaissance has. Avery was often thought of as an American Matisse, especially because of his colorful and innovative landscape paintings. His poetic, bold, and creative use of drawing and color set him apart from the more conventional painting of his era. Early in his career his work was considered too radical for being too abstract; when Abstract Expressionism became dominant his work sometimes was overlooked as being too representational. © Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Image size: 18 x 24 in. (457 x 610 mm). Frame size: 21 1/4 x 27 1/4 in. (540 x 692 mm). [25238] |8000| {R100}