Sally Michel American, 1902-2003

Sally Michel Avery was an American painter known for her lyrical depictions of everyday life. Though she used techniques and stylized forms that were very similar to those of her husband Milton Avery, Michel’s works were often smaller and more thickly painted. Marked by a sensitivity to light and weather, the artist employed alternating areas of pale and rich colors to convey a scene rather than copy it.

Born Sally Michel in 1902 in Brooklyn, NY, she met her husband in 1924 while she spending the summer painting in Gloucester, MA. They married in 1926, and over the following decades she would support her husband’s career by working as a commercial illustrator enabling him to continue painting 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. The artist continued to paint throughout the rest of her life, dying at the age 100 on January 9, 2003 in New York, NY. 

Michel’s works are held in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Fresno Art Museum, and the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford, among others.