Mannequins

Baziotes described his artistic process for the much heralded exhibition, 15 Americans, mounted at the Museum of Modern Art in 1952 as the following:

I cannot evolve any concrete theory about painting. What happens on the canvas is unpredictable and surprising to me. But I am able to speak of certain things that have occurred up to now in the course of my painting.

Today it is possible to paint one canvas with the calmness of the ancient Greek, and the next with the anxiety of van Gogh. Either of these emotions, and any in between, is valid to me. There is no particular system I follow when I begin a painting. Each painting has its own way of evolving. One may start with a few color areas on the canvas; another with a myriad of lines; and perhaps another with a profusion of colors. Each beginning suggests something. Once I sense the suggestion, I begin to paint intuitively. The suggestion then becomes a phantom that must be caught and made real. As I work, or when the painting is finished, the subject reveals itself.

© Estate of William Baziotes