EYE-LIKEY

Check out this fabulously salty, seafaring exhibition

AVERY, GOTTLIEB & ROTHKO: BY THE SEA

June 30 – September 27, 2026

Cape Ann Museum, Gloucester, Massachusetts

ABOUT

We recently had the pleasure of seeing a wonderful exhibition at the Cape Ann Museum: Avery, Gottlieb & Rothko: By the Sea. Three major American artists. One remarkable friendship. And a whole lot of time spent along the New England coast. Milton Avery, Adolph Gottlieb, and Mark Rothko met in New York around 1930 and quickly became friends. Over the following decades, they would make their way north to places like Gloucester, Rockport, and Provincetown, spending summers painting along the Massachusetts coast. You can almost picture it—renting cottages, setting up along the docks and shorelines, painting fishing boats, water, rocks and working harbors by day—then gathering in the evening to look at one another’s paintings, trade ideas and tell stories. Clam bakes, lobster pots, a few drinks… and probably plenty of heated critiques about color, composition and mood. The exhibition brings together a terrific selection of early, raw and gestural watercolors made on location, along with studio oils from the 1930s and ’40s, and larger, more expansive works from the mid-1950s. What I found especially fascinating was seeing the visual conversation between the three artists. The similarities in their early watercolors are striking — bold, loose, economical, and incredibly alive. You can see them experimenting, pushing, borrowing, questioning and gradually finding their own paths. Avery, who was eighteen years older than Gottlieb and Rothko, seems to have played an important role as both friend and mentor. But what makes this exhibition so interesting is that it doesn’t feel like a simple story of influence. It feels more like three artists learning from one another. In a way, these summers became their own informal art school. There’s something wonderful about that idea — three artists escaping New York, heading north to the coast, and spending long days looking, painting and talking about art. The paintings become a record not only of place, but of friendship, experimentation and growth. And that’s what made this exhibition feel different to me. You could feel the energy of their connection in the work.Before the monumental abstractions and the careers that would follow, there were these summers by the sea — boats in the harbor, shifting light, rough water, working docks, little cottages, and three painters figuring things out together.

Pretty good classroom.

- Eye Likey

Note: The writings below are transcribed directly from the exhibition walls. Enjoy!

FRIENDSHIP

AVERY, GOTTLIEB, AND ROTHKO, though often thought of as being in different artistic camps, formed a close bond during the early 1930s and were friends for the rest of their lives. Rothko and Gottlieb, both born in 1903 (Rothko in what is now Latvia and Gottlieb in New York City), were 18 years younger than Avery (who grew up in Hartford) and saw him as a mentor. In New York City, the trio often spent evenings together, drawing from a model and, following Avery's example, making sketches of one another. Gottlieb's sketches capture the essence of his friends-Avery drawing and Rothko playing the mandolin. Avery, in turn, made many drawings of Rothko, including one which led to the painted portrait seen here, which suggests the kind, inquisitive, and intellectual disposition of his friend. For Avery, Gottlieb, Rothko and their wives, time spent on Cape Ann included stretches of both work and leisure. Their daily routines consisted of mornings devoted to sketching en plein air, and afternoons were often devoted to the beach or sailing. Although Avery was well acquainted with the local art colony, having first visited the area in the early 1920s, he, Gottlieb and Rothko were not actively involved in it, forgoing the exhibits and fetes that characterized these groups during the 1930s and 1940s. There were encounters with other artists visiting the area including Barnett Newman, Vincent Spagna, Gershon Benjamin, and Aaron Siskind, but for Avery, Gottlieb, and Rothko, time spent on Cape Ann seems to have been largely about spending time together, discussing art, and advancing their work.

THIS EXHIBITION,

organized by the Cape Amn Museum in collaboration with The Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C., explores the friendship between three major American artists-Milton Avery, Adolph Gottlieb, and Mark Rothko-and the summers they spent together by the sea on Cape Ann. They met and became friends in New York City around 1929 and in 1932, at the urging of Avery shared the first of several summers in this area. The works they created as a result of these visits highlight the significance Cape Ann played in the evolution of their mature styles and in the emergence of an emphasis in the works of all three on color, form and composition-an approach that became a central thread in 20th century American art. Spanning more than 30 years, Avery, Gottlieb & Rothko: By the Sea includes work by the three artists produced on Cape Ann in the 1930s and 1940s and later in Provincetown in the 1950s. By this time their paintings had achieved a universality no longer tied to a specific place. While Avery, 18 years older than the other two, began as a mentor to the younger artists, by the 1950s their artistic exchange was going both ways as Gottlieb and Rothko inspired their mentor. To view the exhibition chronologically, please turn left at the opening within this wall. Photography without flash is permitted

COMING TO GLOUCESTER

FOR AVERY, GOTTLIEB, ROTHKO, and the countless other artists who made their way to Cape Ann and Gloucester during the early 20th century, coming to the area was a rite of passage. Since the 1870s, Cape Ann's summer art colony had been steadily growing, attracting some of America's best known artists including Winslow Homer, Cecilia Beaux, Frank Duveneck, and John Sloan. By the 1920s, art teachers, critics and patrons congregated in East Gloucester and Rocky Neck, flocking to galleries and art associations, making the neighborhood the center of the colony. Avery was swept up by the excitement during his initial visits in the early 1920s, working alongside other well-established artists and showing his work in one of the newly organized art associations. When Avery was joined in 1932 by Gottlieb and Rothko, the trio shied away from much of the excitement of the art colony proper. Instead, they opted to explore the vertiginous and winding topography of East Gloucester, with its jigsaw rooftops and luminous reflections which inspired countless drawings and watercolors. Working from the vantage point of their lodgings near Banner Hill, the three artists found many and varied views to capture in their work.

SHARED

TECHNIQUES

DURING HIS EARLIEST VISITS to Gloucester in the 1920s, Avery established a daily routine. "He used to go out in the morning," his wife Sally Michel Avery remembered: He would strap his easel and his canvas on his back, and he'd walk out on the rocky shore of Gloucester and paint two pictures in the morning, then he'd come home and after lunch, he'd do the same thing. Although largely considered to have been self-taught, Avery's resolve as well as the mentoring he himself received from older artists paid off; by the time he met Gottlieb and Rothko in 1929, he was already establishing himself as an artist. In 1932, when they joined Avery in Gloucester, Rothko and Gottlieb, both of whom had a different work process, were inspired by Avery's work ethic and sought to emulate it.
Summers together offered the three artists a sustained opportunity to work side-by-side, with Avery presumably taking the lead and each artist enjoying important periods of self-discovery. Working on paper was at the heart of their endeavors; in fact, looking back on the period, Sally Michel Avery wrote that summers were: Devoted to works on paper. They traveled well, took up little room, were adaptable to small working space. One could combine water coloring with going to the beach, picnicking, playing badminton. Inspired by the place and by each other, Avery, Gottlieb, and Rothko sketched from the same vantage points and experimented with various techniques including the use of watercolors and gouache on colored paper. At the end of the day, they came together to compare what they had done and review each other's work. From Sally Michel Avery we know that drawings and watercolors made during the summer served as the basis for Milton Avery's paintings created back in his New York City studio.

www.capeannmuseum.org

CURATOR 2 min overview

Sally & Milton sketching away.

HARBOR SCENES

WHILE THE MUCH-HERALDED ERA of fishing under sail was quickly passing as the industry moved into the modern age, Gloucester Harbor retained much of the color and authenticity that had fascinated artists for generations. Gill nets laced out over wooden reels for mending and to dry; anchors, barrels, and other pieces of gear left on a dock; and acres and acres of flake yards where salted fish was set out to dry under long sheets of white cloth. These everyday scenes, as well as the backdrop of Gloucester's skyline, attracted all three artists. Avery, Gottlieb, and Rothko each explored Gloucester's working waterfront and its beaches, capturing them first in sketches and later in watercolor, gouache, and oil. For Avery, many of these subjects-the sea, boats, birds, and bathers-became enduring favorites. During his earliest visits, Avery worked in oil out of doors in an impressionist style, training his eye on the sea and sky, the near and far, and the light unique to Cape Ann. Gottlieb seemed particularly fascinated with Gloucester's working waterfront, making numerous studies of fish-processing activities and the gear associated with various branches of the fishing industry. Rothko too spent time around the city's wharves and Inner Harbor, capturing everyday scenes in watercolor and gouache. While many of the motifs discovered around Gloucester Harbor would continue to appear in Gottlieb's work in coming years, they soon disappeared from Rothko's.

Sally & Milton checking out some fresh watercolors from the morning

Sally & Milton sharing a towel

Adolph & Esther Gottlieb beaching it up

LATE WORKS

BY THE TIME Avery, Gottlieb and Rothko found each other in Provincetown in the late 1950s they all were making large-scale paintings. Hoisting six-foot canvases into his upper-story studio on Commercial Street, Avery, for the first time worked on large oil paintings in his summertime location. Distilling the image to its essence all three artists focused on evoking universal truths. To see the late paintings of the "close-knit trio" together is to grasp in the work of all three a response to space, to near and far, flatness and dimensionality, to ocean depths, to sun and moon-an elemental expression of polarities. While the starting point for Gottlieb and Rothko had become conceptual, for Avery it remained in the visible world no matter how reduced or simplified. Yet the example set by Avery, his unerring sense of color and his ability to compose and to simplify had offered a valuable foundation for both younger artists. With his emphasis on color, form, and composition, Avery opened the door to future generations of artists and to new ways of engaging the viewer.

The exhibition book is wonderful, grab it before they are gone.

BUY BOOK @ the Cape Ann museum store

Rothko chilling on the beach, waving goodbye to us all-

looks like he's enjoying a cold one, perhaps a Ballentine Ale. Cheers MR!

Notes:
The museum gallery was unusually dark, which made photographing the work a bit of a challenge. The iPhone’s slow shutter speeds were, well… not exactly our friends. These are the best shots we could get at the time. All of the images are completely unedited. We wanted to leave them just as they were and, hopefully, give you a little feeling of what it was like to be there with us. Honestly, we really needed our good friend and artist Alan Ota with us. His fancy professional high-def camera would have captured everything beautifully. Unfortunately, Alan was down in Alabama this morning, shooting the city. We also wish our friends and kindred spirits, artists Michael Robertson and Randall Slaughter, could have been here. They would have absolutely loved this show. But, they were somewhere in Cleveland, enjoying Lake Erie.
So, we dedicate this post to all three of them. Cheers Fellas!

Homage to a Master

#UPSIDEDOWN-GERMANCHOCOLATECAKE

Georg Baselitz
1938–2026

(Born Hans-Georg Kern), Deutschbaselitz Saxony Germany

Baselitz never asked permission, and that’s exactly why the work still feels dangerous. There was always something unsettled humming beneath the surface. Dark, yes. Stormy, definitely. But also wired with this strange, almost mischievous play. He pushed paint like it had something to confess—thick, raw, exposed. No polishing. No hiding. Just the full presence of the hand, alive and moving, caught mid-thought. You feel it immediately, that sense that the painting isn’t finished behaving yet. Drips still in motion. Marks colliding. The canvas breathing through the image. Like you could touch it and it might still be wet. That was the sweet spot—and Baselitz lived there. He wasn’t chasing beauty. He was digging for something deeper. Something beneath the image. Beneath the idea. Beneath control itself.

- E.L.

“I began with drawings and paintings, in a way like digging, drilling, eavesdropping, ruminating, mining, as I thought about what lies behind or below.” - G.B.

That excavation became a lifelong pursuit, an evolving body of work that never settled, only deepened. Even in the late paintings, you feel it: the same questions, stripped down, sharpened, turned over again. “An idea starts, but as I work the picture takes over. Then there is the struggle between the idea I preconceived … and the picture that fights for its own life.” And then...he flipped the whole thing. In 1969, Baselitz turned his paintings upside down. Not as a gimmick, but as a rupture. A way out. By inverting the image, he broke the illusion that painting had to represent anything at all. Figures were still there, but destabilized, stripped of narrative comfort. You couldn’t “read” them the same way anymore. You had to feel them. As he put it: “It has to do with my belief that painting is not a mirror of reality. That is a myth… It’s about reinventing reality - and one of the best ways to destroy this myth is by painting the image upside down.”And that’s the move right there, the Baselitz pivot. Not abstraction. Not figuration. Something in between. Something uneasy. Alive.

About

Georg Baselitz

(born Hans-Georg Kern, 1938–2026, Deutschbaselitz, Saxony, Germany)

Baselitz didn’t arrive into a stable world—and he never painted like one existed. Born in 1938 in what would become East Germany, he grew up surrounded by the physical and psychological wreckage of World War II. That sense of rupture—of a broken order—never left him. In fact, it became the engine.“I was born into a destroyed order… and I didn’t want to reestablish an order.” You feel that stance in everything. Not rebellion for style—but a deep refusal to pretend things are whole when they’re not. He began his training in East Berlin in 1956, but that didn’t last long—he was expelled. Which, honestly, tracks. Baselitz was never going to fit neatly inside any prescribed system, especially one pushing Socialist Realism. He continued his studies in West Berlin, absorbing influences from everywhere, Mannerist distortion, African sculpture, even the raw, unfiltered visual language of psychiatric art. Early on, he wasn’t interested in refinement—he was looking for a way through. In 1961, alongside Eugen Schönebeck, he staged a now-legendary exhibition in an abandoned house, paired with their Pandämonisches Manifesto. It read less like a polite art statement and more like a provocation—a declaration that something more chaotic, more instinctive, needed to break through. Then came 1963—his first solo show in Berlin. It didn’t just make noise, it caused a full-on scandal. Paintings were confiscated for indecency. Which, in hindsight, feels almost inevitable. Baselitz wasn’t painting to behave. By the mid-60s, he was deep into woodcuts and what he called fracture paintings—images that felt split, unstable, resisting easy reading. And then, in 1969, he made the move that would lock his name into art history: He turned the paintings upside down. Not as a trick—but as a strategy. A way to break the automatic reading of image and narrative. To interrupt meaning before it settles. From there, his career didn’t smooth out—it expanded. He moved between Germany and Italy (Florence became a recurring anchor), built studios, and kept pushing across painting, sculpture, and printmaking. By the late 1970s, he was not only exhibiting internationally but also teaching—passing that same restless questioning on to younger artists. In 1980, he represented Germany at the Venice Biennale—a moment that marked his full arrival on the global stage. Major retrospectives followed—Munich, Zurich, New York, Paris, London—eventually including a landmark survey at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in 1995. But even as the institutions caught up to him, Baselitz never really settled into comfort. That’s key. Because late in his career—decades in—he began the Remix series. Instead of moving on, he circled back. Reworking earlier motifs, repainting them looser, faster, more distilled. Not repeating—but re-seeing. Like a painter testing what actually lasts. Baselitz’s career isn’t a straight line—it’s a series of disruptions. Expulsion, inversion, scandal, reinvention. And maybe that’s the takeaway for working artists: You don’t have to resolve the tension in your work. You just have to stay inside it long enough to make something real.

Baselitz didn’t leave us with answers. He left us with a way of working. A way of staying in the tension—between control and collapse, image and abstraction, intention and accident. He showed us that painting doesn’t need to resolve to be complete. That it can remain open, unsettled…alive. And maybe that’s the real inheritance. Not the upside-down figures. Not the shock. Not even the legacy. But the permission. Permission to distrust the obvious move. To break your own language just when it starts to behave. To let the painting argue back—and actually listen when it does. Because Baselitz never painted what he saw.He painted through it. And right up until the end, the work never stopped pushing—never stopped testing how much weight a mark could carry, how much truth could sit inside the unresolved. That’s the bar. And it’s still standing.

— EYE LIKEY / Stay raw