Mountain and Meadow

1960

Milton Avery

Painter, American, 1885 - 1965

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Painted in 1960, at the height of Milton Avery’s career, Mountain and Meadow is one of the artist’s finest late works. The initial inspiration to depict this scene occurred in the summer of 1955, when Avery and his family stayed at the Yaddo artists’ colony near Saratoga Springs, New York. While driving near the border of Vermont and Massachusetts, they stopped for a picnic, and Avery sketched the surrounding landscape. He did not return to these sketches until five years later.

The painting’s large size, reductive forms that border on abstraction, and heightened color all reflect the influence of abstract expressionism. To an even greater extent than other examples of Avery’s monumental late works, Mountain and Meadow possesses a profound sense of serenity that shows nature at its most majestic.

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Artwork overview

More About this Artwork

This nearly square painting shows an industrial area with buildings, storage silos, a smokestack, and railroad tracks. A mound of brown dirt or other material is in shadow in the lower left corner of the painting. Next to the mound, railroad tracks extend diagonally from the lower center of the painting into the distance to our right. The tracks end at a white building with staggered gray rooflines to our right in the distance. A tall terracotta-red smokestack rises high beyond the white building, smoke pouring out of its top and blending into the clouds above. Just beyond the mound of dirt, piles of white material, perhaps in unseen bins, line the railroad track to our left and lead back to a row ten interconnected, coral-orange silos. The horizon comes about halfway up the painting, and it is lined with a row of long white and gray warehouses. The artist signed and dated the work with brown paint in the lower right corner: “Sheeler 31.”

Scholarly Series:  American Paintings, 1900–1945

Scholarly Article:  American Paintings, 1900–1945: Mountain and Meadow, 1960

Artwork history & notes

Provenance

The artist's wife, Sally Michel Avery [1902-2003], New York; gift 1991 to NGA.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

1963

  • Milton Avery, Grace Borgenicht Gallery, New York, 1963.

1969

  • Milton Avery, National Collection of Fine Arts (now Smithsonian American Art Museum), Washington, D.C.; Brooklyn Museum; Columbus (Ohio) Gallery of Fine Arts, 1969-1970, no. 110, repro.

1976

  • Milton Avery and the Landscape, William Benton Museum of Art, University of Connecticut, Storrs, 1976, no. 56, repro.

  • Vermont Landscape Images 1776-1976, Robert Hull Fleming Museum, Burlington, 1976, unnumbered catalogue, repro.

  • Milton Avery, Drawings and Paintings, University of Texas Art Museum, Austin; Summit Art Center, Summit, NJ; The Phillips Collection, Washington, DC, 1976-1977, unnumbered catalogue.

1977

  • Milton Avery Retrospective Exhibition, John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art, Sarasota, FL, 1977.

  • Milton Avery: The Late Years, Katonah Gallery, Katonah, NY, 1977.

  • Milton Avery: Paintings and Prints, Edwin A. Ulrich Museum of Art, Wichita, KS, 1977-1978.

1978

  • Milton Avery, The Edmonton Art Gallery, Alberta; Walter Phillips Gallery, Banff, Alberta; Windsor Art Gallery, Ontario; Mendel Art Gallery, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan; Art Gallery of Hamilton, Ontario, 1978-1979, unnumbered catalogue, repro.

1981

  • Milton Avery: Major Paintings, Grace Borgenicht Gallery, New York, 1981, unnumbered catalogue, repro.

  • Milton Avery: Major Paintings and Graphics, Charles H. Scott Gallery, Emily Carr College of Art, Granville Island, Vancouver, 1981, unnumbered brochure.

1982

  • Milton Avery, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Museum of Art, Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh; Fort Worth Art Museum; Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo; The Denver Art Museum; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, 1982-1983, fig. 141.

1988

  • Milton Avery: A Singular Vision, Center for the Fine Arts, Miami, FL, 1988, no. 32.

1991

  • Art for the Nation: Gifts in Honor of the 50th Anniversary of the National Gallery of Art, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1991, unnumbered catalogue, repro.

2001

  • Milton Avery: The Late Paintings, Milwaukee Art Museum; Norton Museum of Art, West Palm Beach; UCLA at the Armand Hammer Museum of Art and Cultural Center, Los Angeles, 2001-2002, pl. 46.

2016

  • Milton Avery's Vermont, The Bennington Museum, Vermont, 2016, pl. 53.

Bibliography

1981

  • Grad, Bonnie Lee. Milton Avery. Royal Oak, MI, 1981: 7, 10, pl. 48

1982

  • Haskell, Barbara. Milton Avery. Exh. cat. Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, and five other venues, 1982-1983. New York, 1982: 174, pl. 141.

2001

  • Hobbs, Robert Carleton. Milton Avery: The Late Paintings. New York, 2001: 30, 93, plate 46, 105.

Inscriptions

lower left: Milton Avery 1960

Wikidata ID

Q20195489

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