March Avery, In the Studio

The London-based gallery Waddington Custot has been making a name for itself with its recent focus on a well-produced publication programme.

Critics have loved the Peter Blake edition of Dylan Thomas’ play Under Milk Wood. The gallery has also brought out a handsome monograph on Blake that spans the career of one of Britain’s most singular artists. In addition to these books, the gallery is releasing a publication on the occasion of an exhibition of works by painter March Avery. The artist is celebrating her 90th birthday this year, and like another long-lived American painter, Lois Dodd, Avery has yet to reach the levels of recognition her career has merited.

In the Studio features images from the Waddington Custot exhibition as well as a short text by Louise Malcolm. The writer contextualises Avery’s work in the lineage of 20th century American art, particularly New York painters of high Abstract Expressionism. Avery, though taking influences from abstract painting, does not avoid figuration in her works. The images collected in In the Studio span more than fifty years of work and show a painter who is very much at home in the technological age of web-safe colour.