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Road to the Sea

Milton Avery

American Art

Like the modernist John Marin before him, Milton Avery described landscapes in a spare and summary way, using a variety of precisely placed touches to suggest the key details of a place. In this view of the rolling coastline of Canada’s rugged Gaspé Peninsula, parallel charcoal lines and strokes of blue wash together indicate the trees on a hillside. Unlike Marin (whose work is also on view here), however, Avery always anchored his shorthand details within an overall composition, based in a few simple outlines and extending to the edges of the sheet.
MEDIUM Transparent watercolor with small touches of opaque watercolor over charcoal on off-white, moderately thick, rough-textured wove paper
DATES ca. 1938
DIMENSIONS 22 1/2 x 30 5/8 in. (57.2 x 77.8 cm) Frame: 28 x 36 x 1 1/2 in. (71.1 x 91.4 x 3.8 cm)  (show scale)
SIGNATURE Signed lower right: "Milton Avery"
COLLECTIONS American Art
ACCESSION NUMBER 43.104
CREDIT LINE Dick S. Ramsay Fund
MUSEUM LOCATION This item is not on view
CAPTION Milton Avery (American, 1885-1965). Road to the Sea, ca. 1938. Transparent watercolor with small touches of opaque watercolor over charcoal on off-white, moderately thick, rough-textured wove paper, 22 1/2 x 30 5/8 in. (57.2 x 77.8 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Dick S. Ramsay Fund, 43.104. © artist or artist's estate (Photo: Brooklyn Museum, 43.104_SL1.jpg)
IMAGE overall, 43.104_SL1.jpg. Brooklyn Museum photograph
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