Attributed to William Baziotes, no coa, private collection, medium: oil measurements:40"wx30"h no frame, mint condition Biography: William Baziotes was an American painter influenced by Surrealism and was a contributor to Abstract Expressionism. n the 1940s he became friends with many artists in the emerging Abstract Expressionist group. Although he shared the groups' interest in primitive art and automatism, his work was more in line with European surrealism. Later in his career he taught extensively. His first solo exhibition was at Peggy Guggenheim's Art of This Century Gallery in 1944.In 1948, Baziotes, Mark Rothko, Robert Motherwell, Barnett Newman and David Hare founded the Subjects of the Artist School at 35 East 8th Street. Well attended lectures there were open to the public, with speakers such as Jean Arp, John Cage and Ad Reinhardt, but the art school failed financially and closed in the spring of 1949.He later taught at the Brooklyn Museum Art School,People's Art Center, the Museum of Modern Art, and at the City University of New York, Hunter College and New York University in Manhattan during the last ten years of his life.