William Baziotes
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(1912–1963) was an American painter influenced by Surrealism and was
a contributor to Abstract Expressionism.
Born and raised in
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to Greek parents, Baziotes began his formal
art training in 1933 at the National Academy of Design in New York
City. He studied with Charles Curran, Ivan Olinsky, Gifford Beal,
and Leon Kroll. He was employed by the Federal Art Project in the
late 1930s. In the 1940s he became friends with many artists in the
emerging Abstract Expressionist group. Although he shared the
groups' interest in primitive art and automatism, his work was more
in line with European surrealism Later in his career he taught
extensively. He became a founding member of the school on Eighth
Street in 1948. He also taught at the Brooklyn Museum Art School,
People's Art Center, the Museum of Modern Art, and at the City
University of New York,Hunter College in Manhattan during the last
ten years of his life.
Baziotes and his
wife Ethel lived in the Morningside Heights area of northern
Manhattan until his death from cancer in 1963.
Some of his famous
works are Aquatic, Dusk, and The Room, all of which are in the
Guggenheim Museum in New York. Other famous works by Baziotes can be
seen at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the MoMA, and the Whitney
Museum of American Art.
