In  the Nineteen-thirties, Delos Avery wrote a popular, witty poetry column, "The Sunbeam", for the Chicago "Sun".  A graduate of Stanford University, he had started his journalistic career in New York City and later moved to Chicago.  He was always an avid hobbyist:  Semantics.  Chess.  Golf.  Classical music.  Modern Art.  Finally, 35mm photography, when the first Leica cameras were introduced.

    In the late Eighteen-hundreds, his father, the Reverend George Porter Avery, had moved his family West from upper New York State to become the first Methodist minister in Ft. Collins, Colorado.  Delos was second oldest of the children.  His older sister, Claire, featured as an early artist for "Paris Vogue" magazine, had a One Woman show of paintings in New York City in 1912.  His younger sister, Pauline, lived in Paris for many years.  She illustrated a children's book, "Greek Tales for Tiny Tots", written by her husband, Raymond Crawford.  She wrote poetry, and later, poignant newspaper accounts of the years of Nazi occupation of Paris.  His sister, Beth, published short stories and poetry; and his half-brother, Curtis, was a fine amateur photographer.  Delos was the uncle of John Avery Bice (a son of Beth), whose generation inherited the legacy of that remarkable family of artists.  Bice, who owns it, has made the present collection of photographs available to this site.

    Avery used many experimental techniques in his investigation of the new medium of 35mm photography - paper negatives, dodging, burning, high-grain effects, somber values, etc.  And he echoed "modern" art forms - the candid and atmospheric scenes of Impressionism, the starkness of Expressionist portraiture (see Max Beckmann's "Blue Jacket", self-portrait with cigarette).

    These photographs of Chicago in the 1930s by Delos Avery are remarkable and sensitive glimpses.  They evoke that city and era.  They also reveal an imaginative and technical finesse rare even among Avery's professional peers.  This collection, all that are known of his works, warrants careful archiving and wide showing.