BRUSSELS.- Xavier Hufkens announced the representation of American master Milton Avery (1885–1965), known for his evocative compositions of landscapes, domestic scenes and still lifes. Celebrated for his distillation of form and harmonious use of colour, Avery’s singular oeuvre straddles the major art movements of his age—American Impressionism, American Modernism and Abstract Expressionism—yet conforms to none.

The artist will be included in the gallery’s presentation at Art Basel 2022. In spring of 2023, Xavier Hufkens will present a solo exhibition of works by Milton Avery. The Estate will continue to be represented by Victoria Miro in London.

Xavier Hufkens: “Like timeless poems, Milton Avery’s paintings have an ability to convey nature, place and domestic scenes. The quiet simplicity of his compositions and sensibility to colour resulted in luminous works. Ahead of his time, he resolutely pursued his own artistic impulses and was influential to his contemporaries and later generations. I am delighted to be the first gallery to represent the work of Milton Avery on the European continent and to be able to present it to a wider audience. I am deeply honoured to be entrusted by the Milton Avery family, March Avery Cavanaugh and Sean Avery Cavanaugh, and look forward to working with them in close collaboration with Waqas Wajahat.”

The artist always blazed his own trail: “I like to seize one sharp instant in nature, imprison it by means of ordered shapes and space relationship. To this end, I eliminate and simplify, leaving apparently nothing but colour and pattern. I am not seeking pure abstraction; rather the purity and essence of the idea—expressed in its simplest form.”

Although Avery primarily lived in New York and captured many scenes from urban life, he spent almost every summer working in rural or coastal locations. Milton Avery was a contemplative painter who strove to capture the effects of light. To this end, he used a variety of unorthodox methods creating luminous, ultra-flat surfaces. He was a highly skilled watercolourist, the transparent medium lending itself particularly well to his preferred subjects of sea, sky, and landscape.

Since Avery’s death in 1965 at the age of seventy-nine, his work has only continued to grow in stature. It is currently the subject of a major retrospective organised by the Royal Academy in London in collaboration with the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, Texas, and Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Hartford, Connecticut. Avery’s work is represented in major museums worldwide.