Alfonso Ossorio - Surrealism and Abstract Expressionism

Alfonso Angel Yangco Ossorio (1916 –1990) was an Filipino American abstract expressionist artist who was born in Manila in 1916 to wealthy Filipino parents from the province of Negros Occidental. His heritage was Hispanic, Filipino, and Chinese. Between the ages of eight and thirteen, he attended school in England. At age fourteen, he moved to the United States. Ossorio attended Portsmouth Priory (now Portsmouth Abbey School) in Rhode Island, graduating in 1934. From 1934 to 1938, he studied fine art at Harvard University and then continued his studies at the Rhode Island School of Design. He became an American citizen in 1933 and served as a medical illustrator in the United States Army during World War II.Wikipedia
"Alfonso Ossorio synthesized Surrealism, Abstract Expressionism, and Art Brut styles over the course of his career. His early works were inspired by Surrealism, although he created these paintings by pouring oil and enamel paint onto canvas—a technique aligned with abstract expressionist art. A meeting with Jean Dubuffet sparked Ossorio’s interest in Art Brut, as he was drawn to the form’s shedding of fine art preconceptions. Ossorio’s career is marked by an oscillation between the influences of Jackson Pollock and Dubuffet—both of whom the artist was friends with—and experimentation with abstraction and figuration. “Congregations,” a series of Dubuffet-inspired assemblages, evoke a Catholic spirit and decorative energy that is characteristic of Ossorio’s paintings."(.artsy.net)

Surrealism and abstract expressionism William Baziotes

William Baziotes (June 11, 1912 – June 6, 1963) was an American painter influenced by Surrealism and was a contributor to Abstract Expressionism.
Born and raised in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to Greek parents Angelos and Stella, Baziotes began his formal art training in 1933 at the National Academy of Design in New York City where he graduated in 1936. He studied with Charles Curran, Ivan Olinsky, Gifford Beal, and Leon Kroll. Baziotes taught through the Federal Art Project in from 1936-1938 and worked on their WPA Easel Project from 1938-1940.

 In the 1940s he became friends with many artists in the emerging Abstract Expressionist group. Although he shared the groups' interest in primitive art and automatism, his work was more in line with European surrealism. Later in his career he taught extensively. His first solo exhibition was at Peggy Guggenheim's Art of This Century Gallery in 1944.With David Hare, Robert Motherwell, and Mark Rothko, Baziotes founded the Subjects of the Artist School in New York in 1948. He also taught at the Brooklyn Museum Art School,People's Art Center, the Museum of Modern Art, and at the City University of New York, Hunter College and New York University in Manhattan during the last ten years of his life.

Baziotes and his wife Ethel, whom he married in 1941, lived in the Morningside Heights area of northern Manhattan until his death from lung cancer in June 1963, aged 50. During his lifetime, he and his wife shared a love of ancient Greek art and sculpture as well as the poetry of Charles Baudelaire. Many of his paintings are inspired by the latter's poetry as well as by ancient art.
Some of his famous works are Aquatic, Dusk, and The Room, all of which are in the Guggenheim Museum in New York.Wikipedia