Sally Michel Avery (American, 2003)

Sally Michel Avery (American, 1902–2003), who exhibited her work as Sally Michel, was an artist and illustrator, born in Brooklyn, NY. She studied Art at the Art Students League, and spent summers painting in Gloucester, MA. While there, she met her husband, fellow artist Milton Avery (American, 1885–1965), in 1924. They married in New York in 1926. Michel worked as an illustrator to support their family, which enabled her husband to continue painting and studying at the Art Students League until his work began to sell. The Avery family frequently traveled during the summer months. Their vacations around North America, Mexico, and Europe inspired many of Michel’s landscapes, still-lifes, and portraits of people and animals. Michel and Avery often shared studio space, and critiqued one another’s work. Michel often painted landscapes and figures in flat planes of rich color, where places and people were frequently represented by simple shapes or outlines, without the details of identifiable facial features. Her work is characterized by a depthless blending of background and foreground, and by playful color combinations. Avery himself worked in a very similar style, and the collaboration between husband and wife is apparent in their paintings. Their close working relationship resulted in a coalescence of their aesthetic sensibilities, and they developed a joint “Avery style.” Michel had one solo show in 1981 at the Waverly Gallery in New York. Solo retrospectives of her work have been exhibited at the University of Iowa Museum of Art and the Fresno Art Museum. Her works are included in many private collections, and in the permanent collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Corcoran Gallery in Washington, D.C., and the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford, CT, among others. Michel died on January 9, 2003.

Timeline

1902
Born: Brooklyn, NY
1956
Yaddo Fellow, NY
1957
MacDowell Colony Fellowship, NY
2003
Died: New York, NY
Education: Art Students League, NYC

Exhibitions

2006–2007
Art in Embassy, American Embassy, Moscow, Russia
2006–2007
Katharina Rich Perlow Gallery, NYC
2006
Katharina Rich Perlow Gallery, NYC (solo)
2004
Katharina Rich Perlow Gallery, NYC (solo)
2003
Katharina Rich Perlow Gallery, NYC (solo)
1998–1999
Wright Gallery, NYC
1993–1997
Wright Gallery, Palm Beach (solo)
1990
Fresno Art Museum, Fresno, CA (solo)
1989
Mekler Gallery, Los Angeles, CA (solo)
1989
David Barnett Gallery, Milwaukee, WI (solo)
1989
Knoxville Museum of Art, Tennessee
1989
Rudolph Gallery, Coral Gables, FL
1986–1989
Women’s Art Journal Tenth Year Celebration, Childs Gallery, Boston & NYC
1988
Art in Embassy, Ambassador’s Residence, Manil
1988
Bell Gallery, Woodstock, NY (solo)
1988
Wallace Wentworth Gallery, Wash. DC (solo)
1987
The University of Iowa Museum of Art, Iowa City, IA, Retrospective (solo)
1987
Corcoran Gallery, Washington, DC, Seventy Five American Masters
1985
Kleinert Gallery, Woodstock, NY (solo)
1984
Allentown Museum of Art, Allentown, PA, (Avery Family)
1975–1983
Henry Fox Gallery
1982
Ulster County Council for the Arts, Kingston, NY (solo)
1981
Waverly Gallery, NYC (solo)
1973
Galerie du Jonelle, Palm Springs, CA
1970
New Britain Museum of Art, New Britain, CT (Avery Family)
1969
Jarvis Gallery, Woodstock, NY
1965–1967
Paul Kessler Gallery, Princeton, MA
1958
Village Art Center, NYC, (Second Prize-oil painting award)
1957
Village Art Center, NYC, (First Prize-oil painting award)
1950
New York City Center Gallery, NY
1950
Sid Deutsch Gallery, NYC
1950
Woodstock Art Center, NY