Skip to main content
Want more images or videos?
Request additional images or videos from the seller
1 of 8

William Baziotes
"Untitled, " William Baziotes, Black Modern Abstract Expressionism, Surrealism

circa 1935

$80,000
£61,461.04
€70,618.03
CA$112,529.91
A$126,422.31
CHF 66,055.85
MX$1,543,043.43
NOK 838,716.38
SEK 789,474.78
DKK 526,978.02

About the Item

William Baziotes (1912 - 1963) Untitled, circa 1935-1940 Oil on board 14 x 19 3/4 inches Illegible Inscription present to the verso Provenance: Previously from the estate of Constance and Harry Baziotes Pennypacker-Andrews Auction Centre, Inc., September 25, 1995 Private Collection, New York EBTH, August 28, 2019 Private Collection, New York This work will be included in the forthcoming William Baziotes Catalogue Raisonné, under preparation by Michael Preble. As a painter, William Baziotes regularly drew on Surrealist and primitive sources. The poetic quality of his work is rooted in his mastery of the technical aspects of painting, his ability to mine the cultures of the past, and, most importantly, his talent for marrying the cerebral and whimsical. Writings by Charles Baudelaire and the French Symbolist poets provided potent inspiration for Baziotes, who also yearned to express deep-seated emotions and states of mind. Baziotes adopted the Surrealists' investment in fantasy and the principle of automatism as points of departure for his compositions. In 1942, Baziotes, his wife Ethel, Robert Motherwell, Jackson Pollock, and Lee Krasner began to meet regularly to play Surrealist games and to write poetry together. This spirit of openness and collaboration shaped Baziotes' artistic sensibilities and hastened the incorporation of Surrealist elements in his work. In order to balance the spontaneity of automatic painting, Baziotes also assimilated Synthetic Cubist techniques; he was familiar with the work of Joan Miró and Pablo Picasso. Baziotes' understanding of Surrealism was highly personal—he drew inspiration from myriad sources and used many layers of translucent glaze to create psychically charged paintings that resonated with the memory of their creation. Although spiritual intensity suffuses the work, the iconography, usually biomorphic, is abstracted and evocative, never explicit. Baziotes explained this intentional ambiguity in 1959: "It is the mysterious that I love in my painting. It is the stillness and the silence. I want my picture to take effect very slowly, to obsess and to haunt."(1) Rarely literal, his titles are clues to the layers of symbolic and personal meaning. Born and raised in Pittsburgh, Baziotes began his formal art training in 1933 at the National Academy of Design in New York City, where he studied through 1936 with Charles Curran, Ivan Olinsky, Gifford Beal, and Leon Kroll. After three years at the Academy, Baziotes started painting realistic landscapes and still lifes. While employed by the WPA Art Project in the late 1930s, he began to execute works in a more stylized manner and showed diminishing interest in rendering subjects with anatomical verity. The 1940s brought close relationships with many artists in the emerging Abstract Expressionist group. Although Baziotes shared their interest in primitive art and automatism, his work consistently displayed stronger affinities with European surrealism. Baziotes met Chilean-born Surrealist Roberto Matta in May 1940, the same year he exhibited with the Surrealists in a group show organized for the New School. By 1941, Baziotes was actively experimenting with abstraction and Matta introduced him to Robert Motherwell. The following year Baziotes exhibited in the "First Papers of Surrealism" exhibition, along with artists including Motherwell and David Hare. Baziotes was honored with his first one-man show in New York in 1944 at Peggy Guggenheim's Art of This Century Gallery. His next solo showing was in 1946 at the Kootz Gallery, which represented Baziotes through 1958. In 1962, he was one of the celebrated artists included in Sydney Janis' important exhibition, Ten American Painters. Baziotes, who was of Greek descent, often used the forms that appeared in the ancient sculpture he owned, and during the 1950s he studied Greek sculpture at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Baziotes drew visual inspiration from a wide range of sources, including the rich colors of Persian miniatures and even the grotesque variations seen in specimens from the natural sciences. In the latter part of his career, Baziotes taught extensively. He became a founding member of the school on Eighth Street in 1948 and in the years that followed, he taught at the Brooklyn Museum Art School, People's Art Center, the Museum of Modern Art, and Hunter College in New York.
  • Creator:
    William Baziotes (1912-1963, American)
  • Creation Year:
    circa 1935
  • Dimensions:
    Height: 19.75 in (50.17 cm)Width: 25.75 in (65.41 cm)
  • Medium:
  • Movement & Style:
  • Period:
  • Condition:
  • Gallery Location:
    New York, NY
  • Reference Number:
    1stDibs: LU184129925032

More From This Seller

View All
"Untitled" Lawrence Philp, Abstracted Surrealist Forms by Afro-American Artist
Located in New York, NY
Lawrence Philp Untitled Oil and acrylic on canvas 75 1/2 x 79 inches Lawrence Philp, the son of Jamaican immigrants, studied at the Rhode Island School of Design and was included i...
Category

1970s Post-Modern Abstract Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil, Acrylic

"Untitled" William Scharf, Abstract Expressionist, New York School
By William Scharf
Located in New York, NY
William Scharf Untitled, 1962 Signed lower left; signed and dated verso Oil on canvas 48 x 50 inches A visionary painter with ties to the avant-garde artistic community in New York at midcentury, William Scharf nevertheless defies art historical categorization. His abstracted compositions of organic and geometric formal elements recall the free associations of Surrealism and the all-over grandeur of Abstract Expressionism, and at the same time embody a very individual and immediately recognizable pictorial sense. Scharf combines virtuoso paint handling, vibrant color, and rich symbolic language in canvases that engage the viewer in a transcendent and emotional dialogue. This dialogue is accomplished in part through recurring symbols, which allude to hidden, mysterious narratives. Scharf plumbs the psychological wells of collective myths for symbolic content: the crown of thorns, the ladder, the fish, and the cross can be found throughout, functioning not, as one might expect, as religious symbols, but rather as a means through which to access a deeper, symbolic level of visual communication. Born in 1927 in Media, Pennsylvania, an early friendship with renowned artist N.C. Wyeth encouraged Scharf’s artistic efforts from a very young age. After a time with the Army Air Corps in the mid-1940s, Scharf formalized his art studies at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts under Franklin Watkins...
Category

1960s Abstract Abstract Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

"Untitled" Steven Pace, Second Generation Abstract Expressionist Painting
By Stephen Pace
Located in New York, NY
Stephen Pace Untitled, 58-06, 1958 Oil on canvas 54 x 41 inches Born in Charleston, Missouri, Stephen Pace grew up in Indiana, where his parents operated a grocery store and then a...
Category

1950s Abstract Expressionist Abstract Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

"Untitled, 56-21" Stephen Pace, Pulsating Forms, Abstract Expressionist Painting
By Stephen Pace
Located in New York, NY
Stephen Pace Untitled, 56-21, 1956 Signed and dated lower right Oil on canvas 22 x 30 inches Born in Charleston, Missouri, Stephen Pace grew up in Indiana, where his parents operat...
Category

1950s Abstract Expressionist Abstract Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

"El Innombrable" Fernando de Szyszlo, Red Mysticist Abstract Composition
By Fernando de Szyszlo
Located in New York, NY
Fernando de Szyszlo El Innombrable, 1980 Titled inscribed dated verso: Orrentia 1980 "El Innombrable" Signed lower bottom edge center "Szyszlo" Oil on canvas 59 1/2 x 59 inches Fernando de Szyszlo was a Peruvian painter...
Category

1980s Surrealist Abstract Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

"Untitled" Edward Zutrau, Mid Century Abstract Expressionist Colorist Painting
Located in New York, NY
Edward Zutrau Untitled Signed and dated on stretcher Oil on linen 26 x 31 1/2 inches Edward Zutrau is among the American artists who worked within the whirlwind of diverse abstract...
Category

Mid-20th Century Abstract Expressionist Abstract Paintings

Materials

Linen, Oil

You May Also Like

Abstract Expressionist Composition on Black
By Ross H. Pollette
Located in Soquel, CA
Colorful and dynamic abstract composition by Ross H. Pollette, who also paints under the pseudonyms 'Max West' (American, b. 1948). Pollette has used oil, in...
Category

1980s Abstract Expressionist Abstract Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Ink, Mixed Media, Oil

Untitled (Abstract Expressionist Painting)
By Jesse Redwin Bardin
Located in Wilton Manors, FL
Jesse Redwin Bardin (1923-1997). Untitled, ca. 1960. Oil on canvas, 18 x 31 inches; 21.5 x 36.5 inches framed. Signed lower right. Provenance: Private collection, Philadelphia; F...
Category

Mid-20th Century Abstract Expressionist Abstract Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Large Abstract Expressionist painting by Oskar D'Amico
By Oskar D'Amico
Located in Long Island City, NY
Artist: Oskar Maria D'Amico, Italian (1923 - 2003) Title: Untitled Year: 1967 Medium: Oil on Canvas, signed Size: 66 x 48 in. (167.64 x 121.92 cm)
Category

1960s Abstract Expressionist Abstract Paintings

Materials

Oil

'Monogrammes'. French Mid-Century Abstract Expressionist. Oil on Canvas.
Located in Cotignac, FR
A mid-century abstract expressionist oil on canvas presented in a plain wooden frame. The work is titled and there are initials 'G.O.' (artist?) on a label to the rear stretcher as w...
Category

Mid-20th Century Contemporary Abstract Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Mid century Modern 1960s Abstract Expressionist painting, renowned artist Signed
Located in New York, NY
Jack Wolfe Untitled, 1965 Acrylic and collage on board Hand signed on the front Frame included: held in original vintage frame with original gallery label Unique Provenance: Parker Street 470 Gallery, Boston, Mass (with label verso) Excellent abstract expressionist mixed media work. Measurements: Image: 17" x 24" Framed: 24" x 28" x 1" From Wiki: Jack Wolfe (14 January 1924 – 18 November 2007) was a 20th-century American painter most known for his abstract art, portraiture, and political paintings. Jack Wolfe was born in Omaha, Nebraska on January 14, 1924, to Blanche and Everett L. Wolfe. Soon after his birth, his family moved to Brockton, MA. At 18, Wolfe had an interest in commercial illustration, which he pursued at the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD). However, upon matriculating at RISD in 1942, he developed an interest in fine art and painting inspired by an exhibition of modern French art. He described this change of direction, explaining that, "One day, for the first time, I saw an exhibition of modern French art. It was like being struck by lightning." He became particularly interested in the work of a number of European modernists, including Rouault, Cézanne, Braque, Modigliani, and Picasso.[1] Following his time at RISD, he pursued a Master’s in Fine Arts degree at the Museum of Fine Arts School in Boston, MA. At the Museum School, Wolfe studied under the renowned Expressionist Karl Zerbe, a German-born artist who was the Museum School's most influential and vital teacher until 1953.[2] After graduating from the Museum School, Wolfe was represented by the Margaret Brown Gallery in Boston, which also represented many other cutting edge Moderns that defied the more conservative tastes of New England collectors at the time, including György Kepes, Congur Metcalf, and Alexander Calder.[3] Career and Museum Representation Jack Wolfe's painting "Robin's Rock" 1962, 72" x 72" Jack Wolfe's artwork received early recognition from a number of organizations and was consistently featured in influential exhibitions, including the 1955 Carnegie International at the Carnegie Institute in Pittsburgh, PA, the American Federation of Art's traveling exhibition New Talent in the USA in 1956-57, the Whitney Museum’s Young America exhibition in 1957,[4] the Boston Institute of Contemporary Art's Selection exhibition in 1957,[5] and both the Whitney Museum’s 1958 Annual exhibition and its Forty Artists Under Forty show in 1962-63.[6] In 1959, his widely acclaimed Portrait of Abraham Lincoln toured Europe in a show circulated by the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston. In addition, his painting Crucifixion was chosen by the United States Information Agency to be exhibited across Europe, including being shown at the Salzburg Biennial in Austria in 1958.[7] Crucifixion was also exhibited at the Whitney Museum and subsequently displayed in the National Cathedral in Washington, DC, in 1958.[8] In 1966-67, his work was selected for Art for Embassies by the U.S. State Department.[9] He received the first annual Margaret Brown Memorial Award for high achievement by a New England Artist from the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, in 1958.[10] With his future as one of the great artists of his time laid out neatly before him, Wolfe moved to New York in the early 1950s, which was then the postwar epicenter of the art world and in the midst of experiencing the first real revolution in American Art, now known as Abstract Expressionism.[11] However, almost immediately upon his arrival, he became disenfranchised with the overtly commercial nature of the art scene there, spurning fame and security in an unwillingness to bend his creative vision to the expectations of others.[12] After four short months, he left New York, returned to Massachusetts where he bought property in Stoughton, cleared the land, and built both his home and studio with his own two hands. He would go on to live and paint there, extensively exhibiting and garnering constant critical acclaim.[13] Wolfe became one of the earliest artists championed by the deCordova Museum in Lincoln, MA and the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston. He was awarded a traveling scholarship in 1958,[6] which allowed him to set up studio in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico and then in San Francisco, California.[14] Upon his return in 1959, the deCordova museum hosted Wolfe’s third solo exhibition, featuring work made during his time in California...
Category

1960s Abstract Expressionist Abstract Paintings

Materials

Mixed Media, Acrylic, Gouache, Permanent Marker

Dynamic Mid-Century Abstract Expressionist Piece
Located in Soquel, CA
Dynamic Mid-Century Abstract Expressionist Piece by Andres R. Montani (Uruguayan b. 1918 d. 2000) Bold and beautiful 1960s abstract expressionist oil painting. This painting is cons...
Category

1960s Post-Modern Abstract Paintings

Materials

Oil