William Baziotes

William Baziotes
William Baziotes, ca. 1947, Francis Lee, photographer. William and Ethel Baziotes papers, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Born	11 June 1912 Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Died	June 6, 1963 New York, New York
Nationality	American
Education	National Academy of Design
Known for	Painting
Movement	Abstract expressionism

William Baziotes (June 11, 1912 – June 6, 1963) was an American painter influenced by Surrealism and was a contributor to Abstract Expressionism.

Born and raised in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to Greek parents Angelos and Stella, Baziotes began his formal art training in 1933 at the National Academy of Design in New York City where he graduated in 1936. He studied with Charles Curran, Ivan Olinsky, Gifford Beal, and Leon Kroll. Baziotes taught through the Federal Art Project in from 1936-1938 and worked on their WPA Easel Project from 1938-1940.

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. His first solo exhibition was at Peggy Guggenheim's Art of This Century Gallery in 1944. With David Hare, Robert Motherwell, and Mark Rothko, Baziotes founded the Subjects of the Artist School in New York 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 and New York University in Manhattan during the last ten years of his life.