Gaspé with Pink Sky

Although Milton Avery’s work ran counter to the dominant art trends of his time, he is now recognized as a critical figure in American modern painting, one that helped shape American abstract art during the mid-century while retaining its roots in figuration.

Diagonally split along the sinuous coastline, this scene of Quebec’s Gaspé Peninsula offers a study in formal tensions between flatness and volume, warm and cool hues, and contradictory viewpoints. Avery’s use of simplified forms, large areas of flat color, and selective use of thin paint had a profound influence on the Abstract Expressionist artist Mark Rothko, his painting companion for many years (see a painting by Rothko on the Smart Museum collection page by searching 1976.161).