East Hartford Meadow, 1922
Oil on upsom board, 23 x 23”
Unsigned
A premier modern painter and colorist, Avery received traditional training at the Connecticut League of Art Students and the Hartford Art School. He exhibited with the Connecticut Academy of Fine Arts in the 1910s and 1920s, alongside several of the Impressionists in this exhibition. This scene has their domesticated representational subject matter, which Avery never abandoned, along with their bright colors, impasto, and atmospheric mistiness.
When he moved to New York in 1925, Avery saw the work of Henri Matisse and other avant-garde Europeans for the first time. His progress toward his unique form of Modernism was rapid then.