What Do You See? The Collection of Sidney Rothberg, Part I

Themes of family, maternity and domestic life are an important part of Milton Avery’s œuvre, including depictions of his wife, Sally, and daughter, March, each accomplished artists in their own right. In the present work, a young mother feeds her baby, with the latter gazing out at the viewer, while an older child looks on at right. The entire scene is imbued with a sense of tenderness and tranquility. While Avery has been referred to as “The American Matisse”–a moniker that likened his mature style to that of the French Fauve–in Feeding the Baby, his portrayal of subject matter is emphasized to a greater degree than in other compositions, wherein content occasionally gives way to a more modernist treatment of form, shape, and color. Many of Avery’s domestic scenes feature a mother and infant (including Sally and March), so the inclusion of a second child here is noteworthy both thematically and compositionally, with the older child serving as a visual counterpoint to the mother and her baby at left.