Sally Michel Avery (American, 1902-2003) Cat Lady
Hammer Price w/ BP
$82,960
| Lot #: 13 Sally Michel Avery (American, 1902-2003) Cat Lady |
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Oil on canvas. Signed and dated 'Sally Michel 1978' (lower right). Signed, titled, and dated '1978' (on reverse). |
| 50 x 42 in. |
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Provenance Private estate. |
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Condition No in-paint or restoration. |
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Auction Date Sep 25, 2025 |
Details:
Sally Michel Avery (American, 1902-2003)
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, and 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.
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.
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, and 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.
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.
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