Description:Waist-length slightly frontal portrait with subject looking to viewer's left. His right hand is on a newel post of a stair and his body is turned. On the left side of the frame a person with bright red hair has his or her back to the viewer. A spotlight is on the upper right edge of the image.
History:Purchased from Gus Baker's niece, this piece was a part of Gus Baker's estate. Avery Handly was born in Nashville in 1913; died at Winchester in 1958. He graduated from the Wallace University School and Vanderbilt University and received his first art instruction from Ella Cantrell at the Watkins Institute in Nashville. Later he studied under Thomas Hart Benton at the Kansas City Art Institute and Grant Wood at the University of Iowa. During his lifetime, important one-man shows were given him by the Ward Eggleston Gallery in New York City, the University of the South at Sewanee, the Hunter Gallery in Chattanooga, and the Centennial Club and Vanderbilt University in Nashville.
