Denis Williams

Denis Williams (1 February 1923 – 28 June 1998) was a Guyanese painter, author and archaeologist.

Biography Dr. Denis Joseph Ivan Williams, C.C.H., Hon. D. Lit., M.A., called by his friends "Sonny" Williams, was born on 1 February 1923 in Georgetown, Guyana (formerly British Guiana), He lived in London for the next 10 years, during which he taught fine art as a lecturer at the Central School of Art and visiting tutor at the Slade School of Art. He also held several one-man shows of his work, and produced the artwork for Bajan novelist George Lamming's first book In the Castle of my Skin. From 1957 to 1962 he lectured on fine art at Khartoum Technical Institute.

Williams was involved in leading the workshops at the Mbari Mbayo Club in Osogbo, Nigeria, in the early 1960s from which noted Nigerian artists such as Jacob Afolabi and Twins Seven Seven emerged. He later became a researcher at the Institute of African Studies at the University of Ife.

The Art of Denis Williams, a book by his daughter Evelyn A. Williams about his life and work, was published in 2012. Awards and recognition His accomplishments were recognised in several national awards, including the Golden Arrow of Achievement Award from the government of Guyana in 1973, and the Cacique Crown of Honour in 1989, the same year that he received an honorary doctorate from the University of the West Indies.

Selected works

Fiction Other Leopards. London: New Authors Ltd, 1963. Reprinted Peepal Tree Press, 2009. The Third Temptation. London: Calder and Boyars, 1968. Reprinted Peepal Tree Press, 2010.

Non-fiction Image and Idea in the Arts of Guyana (1969) Giglioli in Guyana, 1922–1972 (1973) Icon and Image: A Study of Sacred and Secular Forms of African Classical Art (1974) Contemporary Art in Guyana (1976) Guyana, Colonial Art to Revolutionary Art, 1966–1976 Habitat and Culture in Ancient Guyana (1984) Pages in Guyanese Prehistory (1995) Prehistoric Guyana (2003)