Milton Avery in Avery, Gottlieb & Rothko: By the Sea
24 October—24 January 2027
Group exhibition at The Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C., USA
The Phillips Collection presents Avery, Gottlieb & Rothko: By the Sea, the first exhibition to examine in depth how the friendship, artistic exchange, and shared summers on Cape Ann in Gloucester, Massachusetts, shaped three of the most influential American artists of the 20th century: Milton Avery (1885–1965), Adolph Gottlieb (1903–1974), and Mark Rothko (1903–1970). First exhibited at Cape Ann Museum in Gloucester, Massachusetts, the exhibition brings together approximately 90 paintings, watercolors, drawings, and sketches that reveal the personal and artistic connections that developed among the artists over four decades.
The artists, who met in New York City, were drawn to Gloucester by Avery, who first visited Cape Ann in the 1920s. As the oldest of the three, Avery introduced Gottlieb and Rothko to the region in the 1930s and mentored them. The summers they spent together painting, drawing, and exchanging ideas became a foundation for experimentation and discovery throughout their careers. The idea of Cape Ann as a place of artistic freedom is reflected in recollections from Sally Michel Avery, artist and Avery’s wife, who described Gloucester as a place to “live like an artist,” capturing the creative spirit that drew the group to the rocky coast and sandy beaches. They found a creative community there and an escape from the pressures of New York.
Avery, Gottlieb & Rothko: By the Sea traces this important moment of development in American art, connecting Avery, an American modernist known for representational art, with Gottlieb and Rothko, who would later become internationally recognized for abstract art and the New York School of the 1950s. The exhibition illuminates how a shared sense of place, an expressive use of color, and experimentation with scale became catalysts for each artist’s individual development. These explorations, from representational imagery to increasingly abstract forms, are seen in Avery’s harbor sketches and luminous coastal scenes, Rothko’s figurative compositions and color-drenched canvases, and Gottlieb’s beach box motifs, the source of his celebrated Pictographs.
The Phillips Collection was the first museum in the United States to acquire work by Avery, to establish a permanent gallery for Rothko’s paintings in 1960, and to hold significant paintings by Gottlieb in its collection. The exhibition builds on recent technical research conducted at The Phillips Collection, where conservators studied works by the artists using advanced imaging and analytical techniques, yielding new insights into their materials, working methods, and creative processes. Numerous works will also be loaned from the artists’ family collections as well as from major museums and institutions across the country.