William Baziotes

Biography.

Opalescent’ Walker Art Center

Baziotes’ meditative methods required time—but also a lack of premeditation. Fantastical biomorphic forms inhabit a milieu built from layer upon layer of thinned oil paint that has been gradually rubbed onto the canvas to create a rich, almost iridescent or opalescent surface. At the height of his career during the 1950s, Baziotes produced only one or two oil paintings per year, maintaining that each work "has its own way of evolving…"

Primeval wall ("A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell wherehis influence stops."), from the series Great Ideas of Western Man.