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On view through August 23, 2015
WILLIAM BAZIOTES:
SURREALIST WATERCOLORS
Allentown Art Museum
31 North Fifth Street
Allentown, PA
The museum notes “Baziotes (1912-1963) was an
important contributor to Abstract Expressionism who also upheld the mysterious,
dreamlike, and poetic aspects of Surrealism.”
On Wednesday, June 3, at noon, Elaine Mehalakes
will give a gallery talk on the exhibition. Call to reverse a space: 610-432-4333
ext.110. Museum members $15, Others $20.
Link to Gallery site:
http://www.susantellergallery.com/cgi/STG_art.pl?artist=baziotes
The William Baziotes drawings in this show are
early, 1936 to 1939. They are pre-Abstract Expressionism and pre-World War II.
It is Surrealism of swimmers menaced by lightening, bulls
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raising their
fists, and struggling pictographs. Sometimes, however, there is a bizarre
joie de vivre: sunbathing girls with multiple
body parts on city rooftops. The frequent use of gouache adds
brightness and intense color.
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| Sunbather with Hose, 1936-39 |
A Greek-American, William Baziotes (1912-1963) was born in
Pittsburgh and raised in Reading, Pennsylvania, where an early mentor was the
poet Byron Vazsakas. In 1931 Baziotes saw an exhibition of work by Henri
Matisse at the Museum of Modern Art. It was a defining experience and he moved
to New York City in 1933. He attended the National Academy of Design and worked
with Charles Curran, Ivan Olinsky, Gifford Beal, and Leon Kroll. He graduated
in 1936 and then worked on the Works Progress Administration. He was a teacher
at the Queens Museum of Art, 1936-38, and an easel painter, 1938-40.
In 1936 Baziotes met the surrealist Giorgio de
Chirico and he showed his work for the first time, at a group show at the Municipal
Art Gallery. By 1940 he knew Jimmy Ernst, Gordon Onslow-Ford, Gerome Kamrowski,
Andre Masson, Roberta Matta, and Jackson Pollock. Also in 1940 Baziotes
exhibited with the surrealists in a group show at the New School.
Baziotes attended Stanley William
Hayter’s printmaking studio, Atelier 17, which opened its New York venue in
1940. It was a gathering place for the European ex-patriots and the American
modernists; automatism was a frequently used technique and subject of endless
discussion. The work Collaborative
Painting, an exercise in automatism, made by Baziotes, Gerome Kamrowski,
and Jackson Pollock, is dated 1940-41.
In 1941 Baziotes married
Ethel Copstein; they lived in Morningside Heights. Also that year Matta
introduced Baziotes to Robert Motherwell. In 1942, at the invitation of Masson,
Baziotes showed with Motherwell and David Hare in the First Papers of
Surrealism show at the Whitelaw Reid Mansion. However, he was gradually drawn
to abstraction.
Baziotes’ first one-man show was at Peggy
Guggenheim’s Art of This Century Gallery in 1944. A show in 1946 at the Kootz
Gallery established representation that continued until 1958. In 1948, with
David Hare, Robert Motherwell, and Mark Rothko, Baziotes founded the Subjects
of the Artist School on East Eighth Street. He taught at the Brooklyn Museum
School, the Museum of Modern Art, Hunter College, and New York University.
In 1962 his work was in the landmark show Ten
American Painters at the Sydney Janis Gallery. In the 1965 the Guggenheim
Museum held a Memorial Exhibition.
In 2012 the Reading Public Museum held Baziotes’ 100th Anniversary Exhibition, and William Baziotes, A Centennial
Exhibition, Drawings of the 1930s, was shown at the Susan Teller Gallery, New
York, NY.
