Broadcasts: March Avery's Watercolors

For a third online exhibition with galleryplatform.la, Blum & Poe is pleased to present seven watercolor works by New York-based artist March Avery (b. New York, NY, 1932), in conjunction with an exhibition of oil paintings and watercolors installed at Blum & Poe Los Angeles.

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Photo: Philip G. Cavanaugh

A strictly seasonal facet of March Avery’s practice, watercolor has served as a method for taking snapshots of her summers for seventy years. March and her painter parents Milton and Sally used to take long road trips during the summers, departing from New York and traveling all around the US, Canada, and Mexico.

March Avery, Terrace Readers, 1991
Watercolor on paper
27 1/4 x 35 1/4 x 2 inches framed
March Avery, K at Work, 1993
Watercolor on paper
27 1/4 x 35 1/4 x 2 inches framed

Watercolor is a sensitive medium, yet it is also simple in terms of its requirements—a supporting base, paper, a brush, paints, and its foundation, water. This easily transported medium gave Avery flexibility during her travels, a tradition inherited from her parents that still plays a constant role in her artistic process today. These testaments of moments passed are regularly translated into larger scale oil paintings in later seasons.

Spread from Avery's sketchbook, June 1991.
March Avery, Sandy, 1993
Watercolor on paper
35 1/4 x 27 1/4 x 2 inches framed
March Avery, Fall Bouquet, 1996
Watercolor on paper
35 1/4 x 27 1/4 x 2 inches framed

Avery captures her experiences with the fluidity of water, conveying memories that are intimate and poetic. Figures casually read newspapers or have breakfast in their robes. The still lifes offer views of simple domestic settings—an outdoor pool or a vase filled with a fall bouquet—while her landscapes forego grand Romanticism and favor a distilled version of nature. 

March Avery, Porch Breakfast, 1999
Watercolor on paper
35 1/4 x 27 1/4 x 2 inches framed
March Avery, Pool Shadows, 2001
Watercolor on paper
35 1/4 x 27 1/4 x 2 inches framed
March Avery, Bearsville Barns, 1992
Watercolor on paper
35 1/4 x 27 1/4 x 2 inches framed

These scenes capture the depth of everyday life, decomposing a moment into its essential elements—shape, space, and color come together in unorthodox ways to form unique and evocative compositions that push the boundaries of the paper.

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