William T. Williams

For other people named William Williams, see William Williams (disambiguation).
William T. Williams
Personal details
Born (1942-07-17) July 17, 1942
[[Cross Creek, North Carolina<ref>http://williamtwilliams.com/biography/</ref>]]
Nationality American
Height 174 cm
Profession Fine Artist
Website Official website

William T. Williams (born July 17, 1942, in Cross Creek, North Carolina, United States) is an American painter. He is Professor of Art at Brooklyn College, City University of New York, whose faculty he joined in 1971.

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 Governors Award for Fine Arts, the highest civilian honor the state can bestow. Williams is represented in numerous museum and corporate collections including the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, North Carolina Museum of Art, the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, the Menil Collection, Fogg Art Museum, the Studio Museum in Harlem, the Library of Congress, Yale University Art Gallery, Chase Manhattan Bank, AT&T, General Mills Corporation, UnitedHealth Group, Southwestern Bell Corporation and Prudential Financial Insurance Company of America.

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.

Early childhood


Williams is a New York painter with roots in the American South. He spent his early childhood in Spring Lake, North Carolina.[1]

New York: late 1950s


After the family's move to the North, his art talent was recognized by the head of a local community center, who gave him a room there to use as a studio. He attended the School of Industrial Art in Manhattan (now the High School of Art and Design), which held many of its classes at the Museum of Modern Art and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. In 1962 Williams entered Pratt Institute to study painting. During his junior year, he won a summer scholarship to The Skowhegan School of Art and received a National Endowment for the Arts traveling grant.

College years

He received a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Pratt Institute in 1966 and studied at The Skowhegan School of Art. In 1968 he received a Master of Fine Arts (MFA) degree from Yale University School of Art and Architecture.

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, and by 1970 his work was being exhibited at the Fondation Maeght in the south of France.

Art school

After his formal education at Pratt Institute and Yale University in the 1960s in the visual arts curriculum, he investigated the physical boundaries one finds uncommon to explorations in the science of color, setting for himself the standard of achieving in his work an inherent completeness out of the reach of other painters.

The late 1960s

Trane, 1969, col. Studio Museum in Harlem

In 1969 he participated in The Black Artist in America: A Symposium, held at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. 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.

Founding the Artist-in-Residence at the Studio Museum

"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." Kinshasa Conwill, former director of the museum, says that the program "has become critical to the museum's identity and its contribution to the larger art arena."

Reese Palley installation

Williams' first one-man show at New York's Reese Palley Gallery in 1971 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

The 1970s: new inspiration

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 1971–77, such as Equinox and Indian Summer. In 1975 William also took part in an artist in residence program at Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee.

FESTAC Festival

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.

The 1980s

Early exhibitions

In 1982 Williams was included in Recent Acquisitions of the Schomburg Collection at the Schomburg Center in New York. In 1984 William took part in a show titled Since the Harlem Renaissance, which traveled to the University of Maryland, Bucknell University and the State University of New York at Old Westbury. It also traveled to the Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute in Utica, New York, and the Chrysler Museum of Art in Norfolk, Virginia.

1987: Exhibit at the Smithsonian

Equinox, 1987

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/Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C..

Espiritu & Materia

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

1992: Studio Museum in Harlem Artist Award

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.

Working with Bob Blackburn


Bob 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.

2000: To conserve a legacy

In 2000 Williams took part in an extensive traveling show entitled To Conserve a Legacy: American Art from Historically Black Colleges and Universities. The show organized by the Addison Gallery of American Art at Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts and the Studio Museum in Harlem in New York traveled to eight major museums including the Corcoran Gallery of Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, Fisk University, Duke University and Hampton Universities Art museums.

Jazz at Lincoln Center

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 City-wide celebration honoring the artist Romare Bearden.

Current events

Receives award for Lifetime Achievement


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 Brandywine Workshop located in Philadelphia was founded in 1972 to promote interest and talent in printmaking while cultivating cultural diversity in the arts.

Printmaking at Lafayette College

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.

2006: Receives North Carolina Governors Award


In 2006 William T. Williams received the North Carolina Governors Award for Fine Arts by Governor Mike Easley.

Awards and grants

References and further reading

References

  1. ↑ David C. Driskell, "An Unending Visual Odyssey".
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