Milton Avery, designer

From the mid-1920s to the mid-1930s Milton Avery painted simplified flat forms that influenced a younger group of artists who frequently visited his home studio,
including Adolph Gottlieb, Barnett Newman, and Mark Rothko (American, born Russia, 1903–1970). This drypoint profile view of Rothko casually smoking his pipe, one of several portraits Avery made of Rothko when the artists were neighbors in New York City, conveys their easy rapport.