Milton Avery’s late portraits are a reflection of his accumulated skills in depicting the figure with great economy. By the early 1960s he was working almost exclusively from his in-home studio with a bird’s-eye view of Central Park. This city dwelling was an ideal setting for frequent gatherings and he continued to be an active observer of visitors, distilling characteristics with refined simplicity. While the two figures in this painting have not been identified, events such as the one depicted here were a common occurrence in the Averys’ home. As early as the 1930s, the couple’s apartment became a meeting place for young artists, writers, musicians and poets. In interviews, Avery’s wife, Sally Michel Avery, mentions Avery’s love of poetry, in particular that of T.S. Eliot, Wallace Stevens and William Carlos Williams, and that he used to like to read aloud to her and their daughter, March.

Two Poets is one of the last large-scale paintings completed by the artist and is masterful in its simplicity, by turns modest and monumental.

About the artist

One of the most influential artists of the twentieth century, Milton Avery (1885–1965) is celebrated for his luminous paintings of landscapes, figures and still lifes, which balance distillation of form with free, vigorous brushwork and lyrical colour.

Organised by the Royal Academy of Arts, London, in collaboration with the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, Texas, and Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Hartford, Connecticut, a major retrospective of Avery’s work commences at The Modern, Fort Worth this autumn (7 November 2021–30 January 2022), travelling to the Wadsworth Atheneum (24 February–5 June 2022) and the Royal Academy of Arts (15 July–16 October 2022).

Avery’s work is represented in major museums and private collections worldwide including the Art Institute of Chicago; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden; LACMA; Metropolitan Museum of Art; Museum of Fine Arts Boston; MoMA; National Gallery of Art; Philadelphia Museum of Art; The Phillips Collection; SFMOMA; Smithsonian American Art Museum; Tate; Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum of Art and the Whitney Museum of American Art.