Scorpion

Expand

IIIFView PDF

Scorpion

Artist William Baziotes (American, 1912-1963)

Date1952

DimensionsFrame: 59 3/4 × 34 5/8 × 2 3/4 in. (151.8 × 87.9 × 7 cm)
Painting: 50 1/8 × 24 7/8 in. (127.3 × 63.2 cm)

MediumOil on canvas.

ClassificationPaintings

Credit LineMuseum Purchase

Object number

1952.98

On View

Toledo Museum of Art (2445 Monroe Street), Gallery, 07

Label Text"It is the mysterious that I love in painting. It is the stillness and the silence. I want my pictures to take effect very slowly, to obsess and to haunt." —William Baziotes William Baziotes was a member of the New York Abstract Expressionist circle and shared their concern with abstraction and the materiality of paint and its application. But his work, with its strange forms that seem derived from primordial nature, often evokes the dream-like mood of Surrealism. In fact, Baziotes became fascinated with the work of the Symbolist poets of the 19th century, including Charles Baudelaire, who inspired the work of the Surrealists of the early 20th century and strongly influenced Baziotes’ own paintings.Published References"American Paintings - Past and Present," The Toledo Museum of Art Museum News, no. 140, Dec. 1952, repr.

A Guide to the Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo, 1966, repr.

Young, Mahonri Sharp, "From howling wilderness to Queensborough Bridge," Apollo, vol. 86, no. 70, Dec. 1967, p. 504, repr. fig. 20, p. 505.

Lee, Katharine C., "Modern Art," The Toledo Museum of Art Museum News, vol. 11, no. 4, Autumn 1968, p. 91, repr., also on cover (col.).

Toledo Museum of Art, The Toledo Museum of Art, American Paintings, Toledo, 1979, pp. 21-22, pl. 255.

Exhibition HistoryNew York, Kootz Gallery, Baziotes, New Paintings, 1952, no. 9.

Toledo Museum of Art, 39th Annual, 1952, no. 3.

Minneapolis Institute of Arts, American Paintings, 1945-1957, 1957, no. 8, repr. p. 16.

East Lansing, Kresge Art Center, Michigan State University, American Art Since 1900, 1960.

Ann Arbor, University of Michigan Museum of Art, All Creatures Great and Small, 1989.