William T. Williams (born 1942) is an American painter and educator. He is known for his process-based approach to painting that engages motifs drawn from personal memory and cultural narrative to create non-referential, abstract compositions. He was a Professor of Art at
Brooklyn College,
City University of New York from 1971 to 2008.[1]
He has exhibited in over 100 museums and art centers in the United States, France, Germany, Russia, Venezuela, Nigeria, Ivory Coast, People's Republic of China and Japan. Williams is a recipient of numerous awards including a John Simon
Guggenheim Fellowship, two
National Endowment for the Arts Awards, and a
Joan Mitchell Foundation Award. He is also a recipient of the
Studio Museum in Harlem's Artist Award in 1992 and received The James Van Dee Zee Award from the Brandywine Workshop for lifetime achievement in the arts in 2005. He received the 2006 North Carolina Award for Fine Arts, the highest civilian honor the state can bestow.
Williams lives in both New York City and Connecticut.[2]
Williams quickly gained attention from the mainstream art world. The
Museum of Modern Art acquired his composition "Elbert Jackson L.A.M.F., Part II" in 1969,[11] and by 1970 his work was being exhibited at the
Fondation Maeght in the south of France.
From 1968 until 1970, Williams helped organize the Smokehouse painters (including Melvin Edwards, Guy Ciarcia, and Billy Rose) to paint murals in Harlem, using a hard-edge style.[11] In 1969 he participated in The Black Artist in America: A Symposium, held at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. He also took part in numerous exhibitions including the
Studio Museum in Harlem's Inaugural Show, X to the Fourth Power, and New Acquisitions held at the Museum of Modern Art. In 1970 Williams was commissioned by the
Jewish Museum (New York), and the
Menil Collection in Houston, Texas.
"The trustees of the Studio Museum in Harlem read my proposal, interviewed me and hired me to start an Artist-in-Residence program. That program had its start at the first site of the Museum over the liquor store on Fifth Avenue (2033 Fifth Avenue). It was a loft, a factory going out of business that had a lot of sewing machines in it. Mel Edwards and I physically cleaned that space out for the Artist-in-Residence program. That was the beginning. I wanted to create a context, namely an Artist-in-Residence program, through which money could be funnelled to artists which would allow them to ponder the kinds of issues and questions that come up in a graduate program."
Williams started the artist-in-residency program at the
Studio Museum in Harlem.[11] Kinshasa Conwill, former director of the Studio Museum in Harlem, says that the program "has become critical to the museum's identity and its contribution to the larger art arena."[citation needed]
Williams' first one-man show at New York's Reese Palley Gallery in 1971,[3][12] resulted in the sale of every painting. The same year, the
Whitney Museum of American Art exhibited his work twice; collectors such as
AT&T and
General Mills purchased his art; and his work was featured in both Life and Time magazines. Valerie J. Mercer
Williams returned home to the dusty unpaved roads of North Carolina for the inspiration of a new palette, one born of the luster and glow of mica, false gold, and fox fire from earth's pulsating cover. Williams' relief from color-field painting was celebrated in the new works completed between 1971 and 1977, such as Equinox and Indian Summer. In 1975 William also took part in an artist in residence program at
Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee.
In 1977, Williams participated in the second
World Festival of Black Arts and African Culture in
Lagos,
Nigeria (FESTAC). This festival brought together more than 17,000 artists of African descent from 59 countries. It was the largest cultural event ever held on the African continent.
Starting in 1979, Williams changed his painting composition style by dividing the canvas into two distinct sections.[1]
In 1987 William received the John Simon
Guggenheim Fellowship. He also was a member of a show that took place in Tokyo, Japan entitled The Art of Black America in Japan. William also took part in Contemporary Visual Expressions, a show at the
Anacostia Museum and
Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C..
William's traveled to
Venezuela with painter Jack Whitten and sculptors
Mel Edwards and Tyrone Mitchell for the opening of their exhibition Espiritu & Materia at the Museum of Visual Arts, Alejandro Otero.
The 1990s
In 1992 Williams was presented the
Studio Museum in Harlem Artist's Award for lifetime achievement and his role in creating the artist-in-residence program for the museum.
Robert Blackburn first invited Williams to make a print at the Printmaking Workshop in 1975. Over the next 22 years, Williams collaborated with Blackburn to produce 19 editions and a number of unique print projects. His last project at the Printmaking Workshop was in 1997 when he produced a number of monoprints underwritten by art patron, Major Thomas.
In 1994 Williams participated in a
Jazz at Lincoln Center program titled "Swing Landscapes: Jazz Visualized". The intent of the Jazz Talk program was to explore what it is about jazz that makes its colors, rhythms and characters so attractive to the painter's eye. Williams and author, Alfred Appel, Jr. discussed the influence of
jazz on
modern art. This program was part of a New York Citywide celebration honoring the artist
Romare Bearden.
Late life
In 2005, Williams was invited to create a print at the Brandywine Workshop in conjunction with receiving the James Van Der Zee Award for Lifetime Achievement. Between July and late August he made five trips to Philadelphia, staying several days at a time. These trips yielded four editions and a number of unique hand-colored prints. The Artic Workshop located in Philadelphia was founded in 1972 to promote interest and talent in printmaking while cultivating cultural diversity in the arts.
In 2006, Williams was a visiting scholar and artist in residence at
Lafayette College's Experimental Printmaking Institute (EPI), which included Williams lecture about his work sponsored by the David L. Sr. and Helen J. Temple Visiting Lecture Series Fund. During this year, Williams' work was also shown at
the Studio Museum in Harlem in Energy and Experimentation: Black Artists and Abstraction 1964–1980.
In 2006, William T. Williams received the North Carolina Governors Award for Fine Arts by Governor
Mike Easley.
In 2007, Williams was part of the group exhibition What Is Painting? Contemporary Art from the Collection at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.[13][6]
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