William T. Williams

William T. Williams (born 1942) is an American painter and educator. He is recognized as one of the "foremost abstract painters" of the past century. His work has been exhibited in more than 100 exhibitions in the United States, France, Germany, Ivory Coast, Japan, Nigeria, People's Republic of China, Russia, and Venezuela. Williams is credited with being the first Black painter to be included in H. W. Janson's History of Art, and is part of the Black Abstractionism canon. From 1971 to 2008, Williams was a professor of art at Brooklyn College, City University of New York. A Guggenheim Fellow, Williams he received the Murray Reich Distinguished Artist Award from the New York Foundation for the Arts in 2024.

Early childhood and education

William Thomas Williams was born on July 17, 1942, in Cross Creek, North Carolina, United States, to William Thomas Williams Sr. and Hazel Williams. Williams is African American. His family moved to Queens, New York, at age 4. 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. In 1956, he attended the School of Industrial Art in Manhattan (now the High School of Art and Design), which held many of its art classes at the Museum of Modern Art and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. As a painting student, he took classes with and instruction from Richard Lindner, Philip Pearlstein, Alex Katz, and Richard Bove. He received a Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) degree in 1966 from Pratt Institute. One of the museum's signature programs, the annual residency program attracts local, national, and international artists working in several media.

The late 1960s and the 1970s William T. Williams Trane, 1969 Acrylic on canvas. 108 × 84 in. (274.3 × 213.4 cm). The Studio Museum in Harlem; gift of Charles Cowles, New York.

From 1968 until 1970, Williams helped organize the Smokehouse Associates, a group of artists, including Guy Ciarcia, Melvin Edwards, and Billy Rose, who painted murals in Harlem in traditional and non-traditional spaces. Martin advocated for pushing art outside traditional, elite institutional gallery spaces and Martin's emphasis on "collaborative environmental projects" provided a blueprint for how large-scale, hard-edged geometric murals could structurally alter human interaction with public spaces.

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, 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.

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.

In 1986, Williams was the first Black contemporary artist to be included in the standard academic art history text, H.W. Janson’s The History of Art (Harry N. Abrams, Inc, 1979). the Governor Nelson A. Rockefeller Empire State Plaza Art Collection; the National Gallery of Art; North Carolina Museum of Art; the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture; the Menil Collection; Fogg Art Museum, one of the Harvard Art Museums; the Studio Museum in Harlem; the Library of Congress; the Yale University Art Gallery, Brooklyn Museum, The Jewish Museum, The Library of Congress, the National Museum of African American History and Culture, Oral History Project with LeRonn Brooks and Shanna Farrell, a partnership between the UC Berkeley Oral History Center and the Getty Research Institute, 2022 Lifetime Achievement Award, 30th Annual James A. Porter Colloquium on African American Art, Howard University, 2019 Pratt Institute Legends Award, 2018 Oral History with Mona Hadler, BOMB magazine, 2018 Inductee, National Academician, National Academy Museum & School, Class of 2017 Skowhegan Governors Award for Outstanding Service to Artists, Skowhegan School of Painting & Sculpture, 2017 Alain Locke International Award, Detroit Institute of Arts, 2011 North Carolina Governor's Award for Fine Arts, North Carolina, 2006 James Van Der Zee Award, Brandywine Workshop, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 2005 Joan Mitchell Foundation, Grant Award, 1996 Mid-Atlantic/NEA Regional Fellowship, 1994 National Endowment for the Arts, Individual Artist Award, Painting, 1994 The Studio Museum in Harlem Artist's Award, 1992 City University of New York, Faculty Research Award, Painting, 1987 John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship, 1987 Creative Arts Public Service Grant, Painting, New York, 1985 City University of New York, Faculty Research Award, Painting, 1984 Creative Arts Public Service Grant, Painting, New York, 1981 Creative Arts Public Service Grant, Painting, New York, 1975 City University of New York, Faculty Research Award, Painting, 1973 National Endowment for the Arts, Individual Artist Award, Painting, 1970 Yale University, Grant for Graduate Study, New Haven, Connecticut, 1966 National Endowment for the Arts, Traveling Grant, 1965