?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 1,000 - $ 1,500
WILLIAM BAZIOTES Portrait of a Woman.
Oil on canvas, circa 1930. 430x330 mm; 17x13 inches.
Ex-collection the artist's estate; Constance and Harry Baziotes, Reading, Pennsylvania; private collection, New York.
In 1933, Baziotes (1912-1963) settled in New York, having been raised in Pittsburgh, to attend the National Academy of Design, where he studied under Leon Kroll (1884-1974, see lot 170). The current work is from Baziotes' time as a student (1933-36) and shows a clear influence of Kroll's figurative, academic style. A student of formality and naturalism, Baziotes would continue to admire the work of Titian, Rembrandt and Valasquez throughout his life. From the National Academy of Design, Baziotes went on to work for the WPA Federal Art Project and meet the Surrealist emigrés. Through this circle, he joined the young generation of New York painters nurtured by Peggy Guggenheim (1898-1979) such as Roberto Matta (1911-2002), Robert Motherwell (1915-1991) and Mark Rothko (1903-1970). Portrait of a Woman is an atypical, scarce, early work painted before Baziotes' settling into his signature abstract career style.
