William Bailey (1930-2020)
American Contemporary realist artist and Yale University professor, William Bailey is best known for his paintings that hover between the abstract and the hyper realistic. Bailey often depicts assorted bowls, vases, cups, and other vessels. Though these works are perfectly textured, detailed, colored, and designed, he does not create these subjects from reality, but rather from memory and the imagination. Bailey spent summers in his studio in the Italian countryside for more than forty years. The colors and feeling of Italy were of significant influences on his art.
"I admire painters who can work directly from nature, but for me that seems to lead to anecdotal painting. Realism is about interpreting daily life in the world around us. I'm trying to paint a world that's not around us."
William Bailey’s wok is held in numerous esteemed public collections and institutions, among them: Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA, Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY, National Museum of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC, The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut