William Baziotes' duality: escaping the ordinary and finding the extraordinary

Succinctly, decisively, Ethel Baziotes said of her husband, William Baziotes, he saw all of life in duality. This perspective of his was an enduring one. It was also one that helped to define Baziotes place in the art world that emerged in New York City in the first half of the twentieth century. While many artists converged about New York from areas across the United States and Europe during this period, bringing with them an array of personal experiences, cultural ideas, and artistic orientations, Baziotes arrived in New York in 1933 with an established and personal focus that would both draw him to and distinguish him from his Surrealist and Abstract Expressionist contemporaries.