Born in Council Bluffs, IA, 1930, William Bailey attended the University of Kansas and finished his BFA at Yale University where he also earned his MFA. He lives and works in Branford, CT and is represented by the Betty Cuningham Gallery.
Recent one-person exhibitions include Robert Schoelkopf Gallery; Andre Emmerich Gallery; Robert Miller Gallery; Galleria il Gabbiana, Rome; and Galerie Claude Bernard, Paris. Selected group exhibitions include Realism Now, Vassar College Art Museum; 22 Realists, and 7 Realists, both at the Yale University Art Gallery; Decade in Review, Whitney Museum of American Art; and Contemporary American Realism Since 1960,at the Pennsylvania Academy. His work is included in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Des Moines Art Center; Art Institute of Chicago; Arkansas Art Center; Hirshhorn Museum; Pennsylvania Academy; St. Louis Museum of Art; Whitney Museum of American Art; and Yale University Art Gallery. Publications on Mr. Bailey include William Bailey, by Mark Strand, William Bailey, Hollander and Briganti; and Art of the Real, Mark Strand & Clarkson Potter. Mr. Bailey is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship; Ingram Merrill Fellowship; and has been elected to the American Academy of Arts & Letters; and Academico, Academia Nationale, S.Luca, Rome.