William Baziotes
The Parachutists
1944
Not on View
William Baziotes
1945
William Baziotes and other members of the New York School were influenced by the European Surrealists who had fled to the United States during World War II. Like the Surrealists, Baziotes used objects in his environment as triggers for the memory of early sensations or as conduits to the unconscious. Baziotes makes allusions in his paintings to the external world of objects, but these remain elusive and changeable. He usually added his titles after the compositions had emerged through intuitive decisions. Although the titles do not identify subject matter, they nevertheless guide interpretation. Thus, the title of the present work may encourage one to experience the mood of an interior space illuminated by diffused twilight. An atmosphere of nostalgic reverie is evoked by scumbled, weathered layers of gouache in which pastel colors predominate. Unlike Baziotes’s most characteristic works, in which biomorphic shapes float freely on an indefinite background, The Room is constructed architectonically.
On view
Artist | William Baziotes |
Date | 1945 |
Medium | Gouache on board |
Dimensions | 45.6 x 61 cm |
Credit line | Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice (Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, New York) |
Accession | 76.2553 PG 156 |
Collection | Peggy Guggenheim Collection |
Type | Painting |
Copy caption
On view
William Baziotes
1944
Not on View
Edward Wadsworth
ca. 1914
Not on View
William Baziotes
1943
On view
Tancredi Parmeggiani
1951–52
Not on View