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
. He was worked and 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.
I consider my painting finished when my eyes goes to a particular spot on the canvas. But if I put the picture away about thirty feet on the wall and the movements keep returning to me and the eye seems to be responding to something living, then it is finished. 
I think the reason we (he himself and Lippold, fh) begin in a different way, is that this particular time has gotten to a point where the artist feels like a gambler. He does something on the canvas and takes a chance in the hope that something important will be revealed.
The eye seems to be responding to something living.
As for the subject matter in my painting.. ..it is very often an incidental thing in the background, elusive and unclear, that really stirred me.
One hundred artists introduce us to one hundred worlds.
I can not evolve any concrete theory about painting.
One can begin a picture and carry it throughand stop it and do nothing about the title at all.