Skip Williamson

Mervyn "Skip" Williamson (August 19, 1944 – March 16, 2017) was an American underground cartoonist and central figure in the underground comix movement. Williamson's art was published in the National Lampoon, High Times, the Realist, the Industrial Worker, the Chicago Seed, Encyclopædia Britannica and others.

Biography Childhood Williamson was born in San Antonio, Texas, but later moved to Lynchburg, Virginia, and then to Canton, Missouri. Williamson's real first name is Mervyn; however when he was a child, he was a bit of a troublemaker, so his grandmother gave him the nickname "Skip" after Percy Crosby's comic strip character "Skippy". The cartoon was of two New Orleans trash cans. One was labeled "Negro Trash" the other "White Trash". Subsequently, comedian Dick Gregory went on The Tonight Show and showed the cartoon on national television, launching Williamson into the mainstream.

Later work During the 1970s and 1980s Williamson art-directed and contributed artwork to men's magazines. In 1973 he was art director of Gallery magazine, where he created the “Girl Next Door” concept by publishing snapshots of sweethearts and wives sent in by readers. In 1974 Williamson was the founding art director of Hustler, and in 1976 he joined the staff of Playboy.

Exhibitions Williamson's work has been exhibited at the New York Cultural Center (New York City), the Maryland Institute of Design (Baltimore), the Chicago 4 Show (Chicago), the Phoenix Gallery (Berkeley, California), the American Contemporary Graphics Exhibition (a travelling exhibition), the Words & Pictures Museum (Northampton, Massachusetts), the 23rd Century Gallery (Chicago), the Corcoran Gallery of Art (Washington, DC), Lucca Comics & Games (Lucca, Italy), the Tate Modern (London), the La Luz de Jesus gallery (L.A.), Gallery Bink (Portland, Oregon), the Vinson Gallery (Atlanta), and many others. His work was shown throughout Europe in the Comix 2000 traveling exhibition sponsored by the French publisher L’Association.

His art has been auctioned at Sotheby's, Christie's, and Heritage auction houses. Williamson's large-scale canvases depicting political social abomination and political treachery have been exhibited in galleries in New Orleans, Los Angeles, New York City, Philadelphia, Portland, Oregon, and other cities.

In 2000 Williamson exhibited his paintings in a solo show at Atlanta's Eyedrum gallery. Dr. Jerry Cullum, senior editor of Art Papers, wrote in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution:

Williamson's art has been documented by Penguin Books, Brumm Publishing, E.P. Dutton and Company, Studio Vista Publishers, Boston Art & Books, the Graphis Press, Arcanum Press, the School of African Studies — Harvard University, the Designer's Gaukuin College, Northwestern University Press, The New York Times, The Chicago Tribune, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, The Washington Post, the Milwaukee Bugle-American, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Los Angeles Times, the Detroit Free Press, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, and many others.

Williamson's comics are included in the permanent collection of the Ryerson & Burnham Libraries at the Art Institute of Chicago.

Skip Williamson characters Snappy Sammy Smoot Rag-time Billy Necropolis Keester Neon Vincent Nell & Void