Milton Avery 1885 - 1965

Paul Rosenberg & Co., New York
Mary and Earle Ludgin, 1944 (acquired from the above)
Gift to the present owner from the above, 1981

New York, Paul Rosenberg & Co., Recent Paintings by Milton Avery, June 1943, no. 4
Chicago, Illinois, Arts Club of Chicago, Avery, May 1944, no. 29
Baltimore, Maryland, Baltimore Museum of Art, Milton Avery, 1952, no. 30, p. 17
New York, Whitney Museum of American Art (and traveling, circulated by The American Federation of Arts), Milton Avery, February 1960-February 1962, no. 10, p. 24, illustrated
Washington, D.C., National Collection of Fine Arts; Brooklyn, New York, Brooklyn Museum of Art; Columbus, Ohio, Columbus Gallery of Fine Arts, Milton Avery, December 1969-May 1970, no. 10, illustrated
Chicago, Illinois, Maurice Spertus Museum of Judaica, Jewish Artists of the Twentieth Century, October 1975-January 1976, no. 4, illustrated
Chicago, Illinois, Art Institute of Chicago, Mary and Earle Ludgin Collection, September-October 1982

Hilton Kramer, Milton Avery: Paintings, 1930-1960, New York, 1962, no. 27, p. 29, illustrated pl. 77
Art Institute of Chicago, Annual Report 1981-82, p. 38, illustrated
Robert Hobbs, Milton Avery, New York, 1990, p. 86, illustrated

Pink Cock displays the remarkable range of imaginative possibilities Milton Avery conjured during his long career. The artist often featured animals in his work, painting numerous depictions of cows, horses, seagulls, and, as in the present painting, roosters. According to Robert Hobbs, Avery’s representations of birds found their inspiration in folk art, which first captured the artist’s interest in the 1930s. Hobbs writes, “In these images Avery vacillates between natural and cultural forms with grace and wit. Many of his animals…continue this theme since they resemble pieces of folk art that Avery playfully brings to life…

“In these paintings Avery is enjoying a wonderful joke that makes the abstruse formalism of modern art delightful and charming. If modern paintings are first and foremost experiences of the medium before being representations of reality, Avery gives people images of a mediated reality, pictures of pictures that show how reality has already been turned into other mediums such as wooden decoys and metal weathervanes only to be transposed by Avery to still another medium, paint. Because these works appear so direct and innocent, the artist’s subtle wit and complex understanding of nature and culture are frequently overlooked. But as his wife has pointed out on a number of occasions, Avery’s art was extremely cerebral…” (Milton Avery, New York, 1990, pp. 81, 83).

A deceptively simple organization of color, line and shape imbued with characteristic whimsy, Pink Cock achieves a monumentality that belies its subject. Avery modeled his principal subject after a glass animal that belonged to his daughter, March, and derived the background elements from scenery he had observed in Vermont as well as the Gaspé Peninsula. By the time he completed this work in 1943, Avery had established his compositional format of using planes of color, juxtaposed in careful relationship to one another, to create a two-dimensional design. These flat areas are accented by expressive brushwork, seen here in the rosy feathers of the rooster, which adds dimension to the surface. Barbara Haskell writes, “As the forties advanced, Avery’s concentration on color and the simplification of shapes became increasingly intense. As before, color created the dominant impression and set the emotional tone, but now Avery’s choice of colors and their combination became more striking and daring. Multiple areas of pigment were blended together into evenly toned areas marked by Avery’s unmistakable color sense” (Milton Avery, New York, 1982, pp. 92, 108).