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Lot Essay
This work will be included in the forthcoming catalogue raisonné being prepared by Michael Preble.
"And if the artist's guardian angel should ask him: 'Why such desperation, my friend? Why such a baring of the breast?' The artist could very truthfully answer: 'I am a strange creature, and strange most of all to myself. Evil tempts me as much as the good. I would like to be the purest of men, and yet the lewd fascinates me. A great love can bring tears to my eyes; yet at times you have seen me gaze with delight at corrupted men. I worship physical beauty like a Reubens, but then, like Grunewald, I must smell the sores of the leper. My fellow man may prefer heaven after death. But let me, when I die, have the freedom to ramble between paradise and hell."
(William Baziotes, c. 1957, cited in Wiliam Baziotes, exh. cat., New York, 1971, p. 7.)
"And if the artist's guardian angel should ask him: 'Why such desperation, my friend? Why such a baring of the breast?' The artist could very truthfully answer: 'I am a strange creature, and strange most of all to myself. Evil tempts me as much as the good. I would like to be the purest of men, and yet the lewd fascinates me. A great love can bring tears to my eyes; yet at times you have seen me gaze with delight at corrupted men. I worship physical beauty like a Reubens, but then, like Grunewald, I must smell the sores of the leper. My fellow man may prefer heaven after death. But let me, when I die, have the freedom to ramble between paradise and hell."
(William Baziotes, c. 1957, cited in Wiliam Baziotes, exh. cat., New York, 1971, p. 7.)