Closely related to a painting of the same name at the Chicago Art Institute, the luminous biomorphism of this work reflects Baziotes’ interest both in surrealism and primitive art, interests shared by the Abstract Expressionists with whom he is normally associated as a “First Generation” member of the New York School. “It is the mysterious that I love in painting,” he once reflected. “It is the stillness and the silence. I want my pictures to take effect very slowly, to obsess and to haunt.”
