Location

not on view

Fun Fact

Milton Avery worked several factory jobs before launching his career as an artist.

Description

Featuring three boats, a land mass, and the surrounding ocean and sky, Blue Bay was inspired by Milton Avery’s summer trip to Provincetown, Massachusetts. The artist’s fondness for patterning is seen in the slightly irregular parallel strokes of paint that suggest the gently repetitive play of waves across water.

Inscriptions

Inscription

Signed and dated, lower left: Milton Avery 1960

Provenance

(Alexandre Gallery, New York, NY, sold to Nancy F. and Joseph P. Keithley)

-2020

Nancy F. and Joseph P. Keithley, Cleveland, OH, given to the Cleveland Museum of Art

2020-

The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH

Citations

Kramer, Hilton. Milton Avery: Paintings, 1930-1960. New York, NY: Thomas Yoseloff, 1962. Reproduced: p. 26, pl. 6

Breeskin, Adelyn Dohme . Milton Avery. Washington DC: National Collection of Fine Arts, Smithsonian Institution; distributed by the New York Graphic Society, Greenwich, CT, 1969. Reproduced: no. 105

Exhibition history

Milton Avery. National Collection of Fine Arts, Washington DC (December 12, 1969-January 25, 1970); Brooklyn Museum of Art, Brooklyn, NY (February 17-March 29, 1970); Columbus Museum of Art, Columbus, OH (April 24-May 31, 1970).