Untitled (Seated Figure) was created in the early 1930s and was part of David Burliuk's personal collection for several years. A key figure of the Ukrainian-Russian Futurist movement, Burliuk maintained a close friendship with Avery, and their practices informed one another during this period of experimentation and constraint.

Produced during the economic hardships of the Great Depression, Untitled (Seated Figure) reflects a material and chromatic economy that shaped Avery's work of the 1930s. Limited access to costly pigments encouraged darker, more affordable tones, like greens, browns, blacks, and whites, resulting in a subdued palette. Scraps of metal from machine parts were repurposed into drypoint tools; scrap paper, linen dish towels, homemade canvasboard and pressed paperboard made for upcycled surfaces. Similar tonal qualities in this painting appear in other works such as Vermont Hills (1936), situating this work within a moment of experimentation defined both by restriction and invention.

At the center of the painting, a seated woman in a muted green skirt and red top leans into the back of a wooden chair, her arms cradling her head and her legs crossed at the ankles. Her posture conveys a quiet fatigue, capturing an intimate, everyday moment. The figure is rendered through simplified forms and contours, reflecting Avery's early engagement with a modernist language influenced in part by Picasso's bold compositions and flat areas of color. The surface of Untitled (Seated Figure) bears traces of Avery's process: his signature is incised into the upper right corner, and fine scratched lines articulate details such as strands of hair.

This work is accompanied by a letter of authenticity from The Milton & Sally Avery Arts Foundation, Inc., identification number A61126, dated Apr. 15, 2026.