Object Details
- Luce Center Label
- William Baziotes created Primeval Wall for the advertising campaign “Great Ideas of Western Man” for the Container Corporation of America. He didn’t want to clarify the meaning of the imagery, but preferred to evoke “strangeness and otherworldliness” with his choice of titles (“An Interview with William Baziotes,” Perspective No. 2, 1956-57). Here, the two pale forms resemble microscopic cells enlarged to vast proportions. The soft outlines and subdued, blurred colors create a dreamlike scene of twisting shapes, floating in some ethereal substance.
- Luce Object Quote
- “A few brushstrokes start me off on a labyrinthian journey [and] I am led to a more real reality.” Baziotes, William Baziotes: A Retrospective Exhibition, 1978
- Data Source
- Smithsonian American Art Museum
- Artist
- William Baziotes, born Pittsburgh, PA 1912-died New York City 1963
- Date
- 1959
- Credit Line
- Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Container Corporation of America
- Medium
- oil on canvas
- Dimensions
- 24 1/4 x 30 3/8 in. (61.6 x 77.1 cm.)
- Type
- Painting
