curated by Bruce Weber 

Spanning four generations, the exhibition brings together works by Milton Avery and Sally Michel, their daughter March Avery, her husband Philip G. Cavanaugh, their son Sean Cavanaugh, and his child Delilah Cavanaugh. For the first time, the public will have the opportunity to experience an intimate look at the art created in Woodstock by the Avery family — a body of work deeply rooted in American modernism.

For 125 years, Byrdcliffe has cultivated a community of artists at the base of Mount Guardian in the hamlet of Woodstock, welcoming luminaries from Laszlo Moholy-Nagy and Eva Hesse to Philip Guston and Bob Dylan. Yet few families have embodied Byrdcliffe’s creative spirit across generations as fully as the Averys.

Milton and Sally Avery first visited the Woodstock area in 1939 and spent their summers at Byrdcliffe in the early 1950s with their daughter March. Milton and Sally returned to the area in the summer of 1962, and since Milton’s death in 1965, surviving members have continued to travel upstate to their home in Bearsville, where the area continues to inspire generation after generation.

“My family has been connected to Woodstock and the Catskills for over 75 years,” said artist and family member Sean Cavanaugh. “The 1950 residency by my Grandparents at Byrdcliffe was the catalyst for this amazing bond. Over the years this magical place has provided endless inspiration and rejuvenation across four generations. I hope this exhibition can convey how much this region has given us and how it continues to enrich our work and lives.” 

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Milton Avery (1885–1965)

Often called “the American Matisse,” Milton Avery developed a signature style of flattened forms and luminous color planes that bridged Impressionism, Fauvism, and American modernism. A central figure in the New York art world alongside Mark Rothko and Adolph Gottlieb, his work is held in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, Metropolitan Museum of Art, the National Gallery of Art, the Tate Gallery in London, and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, among many others. He is buried in the Artists’ Cemetery in Woodstock, New York.

Sally Michel Avery (1902–2003)

Painter and illustrator, Sally Michel Avery worked side by side with Milton for decades while largely supporting the family through her contributions to The New York Times and other illustration work. Her paintings are held in the permanent collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Brooklyn Museum, Wadsworth Atheneum Art Museum, and other institutions. She died in 2003 at the age of 100.

March Avery (b. 1932)

The only child of Milton and Sally, March Avery came of age in the company of Rothko, Gottlieb, and Barnett Newman. Her paintings carry forward the colorist tradition of her parents — flat picture planes, simplified interlocking forms, richly saturated palettes — while bringing a direct, matter-of-fact quality entirely her own. Her work is held in the collections of the Brooklyn Museum, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and the Woodstock Artists Association & Museum, among others.

Philip G. Cavanaugh (1931-2022)

Scholar and educator, March’s husband was also a gifted photographer and an early supporter of the Center for Photography at Woodstock (CPW). Many of his art works chronicle the family’s life in Woodstock.

Sean Cavanaugh (b. 1969)

Sean Cavanaugh was raised in Greenwich Village before attending Pitzer College in Claremont, California, where he majored in Studio Art and Environmental Studies. He is a director of the Milton Avery Trust, over-seeing the artistic estates of his grandparents, Milton Avery and Sally Michel Avery, as well the work of his mother, the painter March Avery (Cavanaugh). He is Vice President of The Milton and Sally Avery Arts Foundation, furthering its mission to enrich education in the visual arts.

Cavanaugh divides his time between lower Manhattan and Bearsville, where he lives with his wife and child, also an artist. He maintains a rigorous artistic practice of his own—his work pervaded by environmental consciousness. He has exhibited in the United States and internationally; most recently (in 2024) he was the subject of a solo exhibition, Eyes on Nature: The Art of Sean Cavanaugh, at the Morris Museum in New Jersey.

Delilah Cavanaugh (b. 2006)

Great-grandchild of Milton and Sally Avery, Delilah Cavanaugh continues the family’s dedication to painting and the natural world, extending a remarkable legacy in American art into its fourth generation. Delilah is currently completing a BFA in Graphic Art.

About the Curator

Art historian and poet Bruce Weber received his Ph.D. in art history at the Graduate School of the City University of New York, where he studied with his longtime mentor Dr. William H. Gerdts. A leading scholar of American art of the past two centuries, Dr. Weber has served as a curator at several museums, including the Norton Museum of Art, the National Academy Museum and the Museum of the City of New York, and as the director of research and exhibitions at Berry-Hill Galleries in New York from 1990 to 2007.

Dr. Weber has published widely and curated numerous exhibitions on, among others, the artists William Merritt Chase, Marsden Hartley, Yasuo Kuniyoshi, Stuart Davis and Will Barnet, and has organized shows on such diverse topics as the apple and rose in American art, late 19th and early 20th century American bronze figurative sculpture, and images of New York’s Flatiron Building and Washington Square. For the past several years he has been focusing his art historical attention primarily on the historic Woodstock art colony. Since 2020, Dr. Weber has curated twelve historical exhibitions in town and has produced and written extensively for his website Learning Woodstock Art Colony.

Read Bill DeNoyelles wonderful piece on the time he spent as a younger artist assisting and working beside Sally Michel Avery during a number of summers in Woodstock.

My Summers With Sally Michel Avery