Dancer 1954

Milton Avery’s ‘Dancer’ from 1954 is a woodcut in black ink on paper. Just imagine him, inking the block, carefully pressing the paper, pulling it back to reveal this image. It’s all about the stark contrast between the white dancer and the dense black background. The dancer herself is all angles and swoops, caught mid-motion, skirt flying, arms outstretched. You can almost feel the energy and movement of the dancer, the scratchy lines adding a kind of raw, visceral energy. I imagine Avery, like other painters, must have been thinking about the relationship between form and space. He simplifies the figure, reducing it to its essential elements. The background, full of etched lines, feels like a stage or a kind of energetic field. It reminds me of the prints of someone like Matisse. You know, that conversation between artists across time. It’s pretty cool.