Walter H. Williams

Walter Henry Williams Jr. (1920–1998) was an African American-born artist, painter, printmaker and ceramicist who became a Danish citizen later in his life. The subjects of his artwork evolved from urban street scenes straight out of his New York upbringing to the metaphorical images of rural Black children playing in fields of sunflowers, butterflies and shacks.

Early life and education He was born on August 11, 1920, to Walter and Louise Williams in Brooklyn, New York, one of two children. His mother was a domestic worker who also painted and encouraged his interest in art. His sister Dorothy, a year younger, would herself become an artist.

His mother died of pneumonia a year after she separated from his father. The children were raised by a strict father and stepmother, and William's dream of becoming an artist faded. He escaped into a childhood dream world that would reappear later in his woodcuts.

Williams received a scholarship to spend a summer at the Skowegan School of Painting and Sculpture in Maine in 1953. He roomed with artist David Driskell, the only other African American student there, who would become a lifelong friend. Driskell, who became a well-known art historian, teacher and curator, included Williams in many of the art exhibitions he organized over the years. Williams won a first-place award for painting at Skowegan.

In a 1976 newspaper essay chronicling the history of African American artists, renowned artist Romare Bearden described Williams as “gifted.”

Evolution of his style and theme Williams participated in several exhibits in the early 1950s. In 1953, he won a third prize gold medal for his painting “On the Railing” in the fourth annual exhibit for artists and students of New York City at the Harlem Branch of the YWCA. He was 32 years old, lived in Englewood, New Jersey, and was a student at the Brooklyn Museum school. The speaker at the event was artist Charles White.

That same year, he participated in a group show at the Whitney Museum of American Art’s 21st annual exhibition of contemporary artists. He submitted a painting titled “Store Front Christ.”

The next year, he had a solo exhibit at the Roko Gallery in New York. It would be the first of three shows over the ensuing years.

These new images of children in fields, sunflowers, butterflies, blackbirds and a bright sun appeared often in William's subsequent works, each taking on the theme of a southern landscape, the title of one of his paintings. In 1959, he was among the artists whose works were part of a traveling show titled “American Prints Today" sponsored by the Print Council of America. His entry was “Fighting Cock.” The exhibit was held simultaneously in eight U.S. cities. He also received a grant from the National Institute of Arts & Letters in 1960.

Williams spent the next decades in and out of the United States. From 1959 to 1963, he traveled and painted in Mexico, showing his works in several exhibitions, including at the Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes in Mexico City. He told a Mexican reporter that “freedom from racial prejudice was essential” for him to develop as a person and an artist, an atmosphere he found in Mexico but not his native America. He returned to the United States but stayed for only a year.

In 1963, he received the $100 Perkin-Elmer prize for an oil painting in the Silvermine Guild of Artists annual competition. A year later, he returned to Copenhagen, where he curated an exhibit for expatriate artists titled “Ten American Negro Artists Living and Working in Europe.” The other artists featured were Harvey Cropper, Beauford Delaney, Herbert Gentry, Arthur Hardie, Clifford Jackson, Sam Middleton, Earl Miller, Norma Morgan and Larry Potter. He also exhibited at the Golden Door Gallery in New Hope, Pennsylvania.

Driskell tapped him to become an artist-in-residence in Fisk University’s Art Department in Nashville, where Driskell was chair. During his stay, his works were shown at the university, the Louisville (KY) Art Workshop (where most of the works were his woodcuts), the Parthenon (Nashville), Brooks Memorial Art Gallery (Memphis), Jackson (MS) State University, Studio 22 (Chicago), Lee Nordness Galleries (NY), Mount Holyoke College (MA) and Stephens College (MO).

In 1969, he was among 10 African American artists who exhibited at Mount Holyoke College in Hadley, MA. It was the first of its kind show for the university. Williams chartered a bus to the exhibition.

At the end of his residency at Fisk, he assembled a farewell exhibit of his paintings, color woodcuts and pottery at the school. in 1969, he and Marlena returned to Denmark, where he continued to work and also taught in his studio in Frederiksberg. The show opened in 1982 and included works by Williams, Herbert Gentry, Sam Middleton and Clifford Jackson. The theme mimicked the exhibit Williams had mounted about a decade earlier.

One newspaper story noted that all had gained recognition in Europe before being acknowledged in the United States. One newspaper columnist mentioned that Gentry, Middleton and Jackson spoke about their work and experiences to a large audience at the show, but the article made no mention of Williams.

In 1973, Williams sent Driskell a catalog from a show in Copenhagen for which Driskell had written the introduction. A year earlier, Driskell had visited him in Denmark. Driskell related to a reporter what Williams had told him about his artwork:“All my life I have been painting one picture. It is one that reflects my own image and the inner thoughts of my mind. I feel the naivete of a child when I paint yet I have the passions of the father that I am. I am an artist who is full of love for the world and all the images it holds.”

Brooklyn Museum of Art

Whitney Museum of American Art

Cincinnati Art Museum

Riverside Museum of Art, NY

The Studio Museum in Harlem

Georgia Museum of Art

Smithsonian American Art Museum

David C. Driskell Center

Petrucci Family Foundation Collection of African-American Art

Baltimore Museum of Art

The White House, National Collection of Fine Arts

Selected exhibitions YWCA, Harlem Branch, 1953

Roko Gallery, 1954, 1962, 1963

Musee d’art et d’histoire, Geneva 1965

Fisk University, 1967, 1968, 1975, 2019

Cornell University, 1967

The Parthenon, Nashville, 1967

Lee Nordness Galleries, NY, 1969

Hudson River Museum, 1970

Davenport Municipal Art Gallery, 1970

Cheekwood Estate and Gardens, Nashville, 1971

National Armory, Wilmington, DE, 1971

Studio Museum of Harlem, 1982

Kenkeleba House, 1986

M. Hanks Gallery, 2004

Baltimore Museum of Art, 2015