Ralph Avery

RALPH AVERY (Rochester, Georgia - New York 1907-1976).Streets.Silkscreen on paper.Signed in plate in the lower left corner.Size: 57 x 77 cm.He was an American landscape painter and watercolourist. He engraved city streets, churches, trees, iron fences and the environment of Rochester, New York. He also painted in Mexico, the West Indies, Europe and North Africa.Avery painted from childhood. Born in Georgia, Avery moved to Rochester in the early 1920s and studied at the Rochester Institute of Technology, earning his degree in 1928. From 1930 to 1931, Avery studied at the Louis C. Tiffany Foundation, Oyster Bay. Tiffany Foundation, Oyster Bay on a scholarship. He studied with Charles Woodbury, Harry Leith-Ross and Carl Peters, among others. Avery taught in the Applied Arts Department at RIT for twenty-five years. By the time of his death in 1976, Avery had become one of Rochester's most identifiable and popular painters.He painted primarily scenes of Rochester and the Corn Hill area, including: grey, misty views of the skyline, portraits of elegant old houses in the city, and abstractions of natural areas. Ralph Avery states that his work was strongly influenced by Japanese artists with simple, flat decorative patterns and strong designs.His awards and exhibitions include in 1954 - Pratt Purchase Award, in 1954 - Solo exhibitions at the Smithsonian and the National Collection of Fine Arts, in 1957 - Grumbacher Purchase Award, in 1957 - Rudolf Lesch Fine Arts Purchase Award, in 1960 - Appointed Fellow of the Rochester Museum and Science Center, in 1967 - Outstanding Alumnus at the Lilian Fairchild Award Institute of Technology, University of Rochester 1976 - Arnot Art Gallery, Elmira, New York, in 1980 - Memorial Art Gallery, Rochester, New YorkIn September 1954, Avery's "Plymouth Avenue Rain" was exhibited in the American Top 40. His piece was chosen by the American Watercolour Society to be shown in this exhibition.