Sally Michel "Figures and Landscapes-Selected Paintings"

Katharina Rich Perlow Gallery

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The Katharina Rich Perlow Gallery announces our fifth solo exhibition of paintings and watercolors by artist, Sally Michel.

Alongside husband, Milton Avery, Sally Michel mastered a unique talent: the ability to create distinctly modern paintings rooted in accessible imagery, relatable to the viewer yet progressive in her composition. Focusing on familiar scenes of figures deep in discussion, enjoying a domestic or natural setting or on the landscape itself, Michel used varying creative inspirations to surface the relationships between her figures and their environments. Her lyrical style took influences from the Fauves, including Henri Matisse, Raoul Dufy, and Andre Derain as well as the Nabis. American traditions such as Tonalism, Folk Art, and contemporary cartoon-like illustrations also led to the development of this distinct manner of painting, especially Sally and Milton Avery’s trademark use of lush color along with thin, transparent washes.

Mastering a playful and humanized version of abstraction, Sally Michel’s work serves as a reminder to consider the simple pleasures in life. She worked as a freelance illustrator for The New York Times, enabling her husband to paint full time and attend the Art Students League. Though she never abandoned painting, being primary supporter of the household kept her from painting for the market and perhaps from receiving the proper credit she deserves. It was not until Milton’s death in 1965 that she devoted herself fully to her work.

In 1981, she had her first solo show at the Waverly Gallery in New York. Michel’s simplified forms, matted planes and bold color choices are composed to convey a sincere sense of togetherness. Sally’s optimistic yet practical view of the world guided her work into a style that finds modernism in the everyday, and in turn strips the everyday of the banal. Spending many summers vacationing in the Catskills, Michel revered the nature she observed as evident in the romantic landscapes appearing in this show. Her emphasis on the familiar allows her work to transcend market trends as viewers see an encompassing and tender glimpse of their own lives within her canvases. The anonymous figures engaged in scenes of repose allow the viewer to see every American family in the Averys.

Sally Michel has had frequent exhibitions throughout the United States such as at the Fresno Art Museum, CA, (solo), The University of Iowa Museum of Art, IA (solo), The New Britain Museum of Art, CT, and The Allentown Museum of Art, PA. Her work is in the permanent collections of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, NYC, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington DC, Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, CT, Fresno Art Museum, CA and The Israel Museum, Israel.

Media

Schedule

from November 06, 2010 to December 18, 2010

Artist(s)

Sally Michel

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