William Baziotes American, 1912-1963

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Born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Baziotes was an Abstract Expressionist closely aligned with Gestural painting and Surrealism. 

  He moved to New York City in 1933 and studied at the National Academy of Design, primarily with Leon Kroll. From 1936 to 1941, he was a WPA artist, working as a teacher in the Easel Painting Division. In the early 1940s, he came under the influence of European Surrealists who were expatriates in New York, here he began to experiment with Automatism.

In 1948, shortly after befriending Robert Motherwell and Mark Rothko, these three artists founded the Subjects of the Artists School. Its purpose was to promote avant-garde art, specifically Abstract Expressionism.

Often painting intuitively, Baziotes created to express his emotions about the mysteries of life, frequently using rich colors to do so. . .”the act of doing it becomes the experience.”- William Baziotes

Baziotes died in New York in 1963, and in 1965, a memorial exhibition of his work was held at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum.