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WILLIAM BAILEY
(American, born 1930)
Seated Figure, 1962
Graphite on paper
22 11/16 x 17 1/8”
Gift of the Patrons of Graphics 1963.3

Born in Council Bluffs, Iowa, contemporary realist William Bailey earned both his B.F.A. and M.F.A. from Yale University, where he studied under the renowned color theorist Josef Albers. Best known for his variations on the theme of tabletop still life—in which he variously arranges pitchers, cups, vases, and eggs, and then paints the ensemble in muted earth tones—Bailey also created skillfully rendered figural drawings. He is also celebrated as an influential teacher, known as much for the achievements of generations of students—he is currently professor emeritus of painting at Yale, where he taught almost continuously from 1957—as for his own art. Though he came of age during the height of Abstract Expressionism, Bailey never abandoned his commitment to the observable world and, like his students, regularly works from life. In his pencil drawing Seated Figure, the sketchy outlines and rubbed erasures of the model’s body offset the firm contours and delicately shaded patches that lend weight and shape to her face.